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dreamkidddream · 3 years

Note

I’m the Doll!MC Anon and I just wanna say I’m so glad that you enjoy a soft/delicate!MC and I really didn’t expect it to get so much love!

Since I kinda want to be evil and see the boys be overprotective, can I request hc’s of them seeing Doll!MC getting hurt by some lesser demon that bumps her into the ground and she gets a bruise? 🌚

Omg Doll Anon I wasn’t expecting it to get so much love either (here’s the original Doll!MC HCs if anyone wants to read)!! So I actually had your request saved for when I was done with the prompt special bc it’s so good, so I decided to combine them and I have definitely been waiting to write this 😈😈 Reader is gender neutral!

CW: mention of blood (nothing graphic) and spoilers for Lesson 16 (Lucifer, Mammon, Beel, and Belphie’s part)

The Brothers and Diavolo with Doll!MC who Gets Hurt

Lucifer

Okay whoever is dumb enough to hurt you in front of him deserves this 100%

The air around this man is already more than intimidating, so whoever tries this is a poor, stupid soul

When he saw you fall down the stairs, he felt his stomach turn. He already caught you before you could injure yourself further, but after seeing the blood coming down your face, the damage was already done

Now, Lucifer is the brother who always has control over himself and what he does. But, we also know that how his temper can get, especially when it comes to his family

This demon is dumb enough to push you but not dumb enough to crack a smile in front of him, especially with how tense Lucifer is getting right now

He sat you up and tried to remember some first aid techniques to stop the bleeding. You’re on the verge of losing consciousness, but you’re okay right now. He’ll take you home, but first-

His glare is making the demon freeze in place right now, and the anger radiating off of him is petrifying

How dare- how dare this fool harm you, in front of him no less?! Did they think that he wouldn’t do anything? That Lucifer, the Avatar of Pride, one of the strongest demons to ever grace the Devildom, would just idly stand by and let this happen?

He’s stalking towards them, and he can feel his fangs showing and his diamond appearing on his forehead, growling out how they will pay for this-

But he’s stopped by Lord Diavolo, who was shocked by the scene. You’re unconscious, and Lucifer has this poor student hanging in the air by their uniform, claws ready to slice through them. Needless to say, he understands why his close friend is upset, but for everyone’s safety he should just take you home like planned

You thought Lucifer was a helicopter parent before? You haven’t seen NOTHING yet

He would start inviting you more to his room to sleep in his bed while he works away, and it started happening so much that he didn’t even ask anymore and started expecting you to always be in there

So instead of him being glued by your side, you’re glued to his. It’s obvious that he can’t let you out of his sight without something happening (again), so hope you’re ready to see experience Lucifer’s daily routine from sunrise to sunset and a whole new set of rules. Basically playing follow the leader, but with a lot more handholding and kisses

You had to practically beg to be back into the kitchen, and he only relented when he could be the one to supervise you, and even then he still didn’t want to hold anything sharp or be near anything that could injure you (which is pretty much everything)

The main one to put a stop to his brothers’ schemes, handing out harsher punishments than before each time they try to involve you. This man is not playing any games with anyone

You know he means well, he was already overprotective from the start, and this is just his way of showing that he cares about you. You can tell every time he gives you that soft look in his eyes, and the regret that he shows every time he catches sight of your bruise. He may not like to be vulnerable, but he couldn’t hide his emotions from you too long. You’re like a weakness to him, one that he isn’t against indulging in

And he hasn’t forgotten about that student, oh no. He made sure to have a nice lengthy chat with them when you both returned to RAD. You didn’t question it when he informed you that the student had been rightfully punished and no longer an issue, and you tried to ignore the red dots splattered on his shoes, or that sadistic gleam in his eyes...

Mammon

This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening-

The blood is pouring from your head, and your eyes are closing too fast for him, and his heart stops

You look lifeless, like when Belphie killed you, when he was too late to save you-

He’ll never forget that image, it’s drilled deep into his mind, forever a reminder of his failure to protect you. And now he failed again-

This demon is gloating about this, and that’s when he snaps

He was already in his demon form and beating the life out of them when he was restrained. Many people were shocked that he was capable of this, that Mammon the scumbag, Mammon the dummy, Mammon the punching bag was capable enough to be this dangerous, this deadly. He’s the second born after all, and he’s the strongest right under Lucifer himself, and he holds a lot in

He could- he would do a lot more because they deserve it, but just seeing you so still, it snaps him out of it. You’re more important to him than getting his anger out, and you’re the one he needs to be focusing on right now. But rest asssured, this isn’t over

You thought he was attached to you before? He is glued to your side 24/7 and will not be leaving anytime soon. Ever since you woke up he never let go of you, calling you “his human” and just hugging you tight

Also if you have to go down the stairs you guys are FLYING no exceptions! The stairs are the devil in his eyes (how ironic) and he will not be risking anything with you

If you guys aren’t out and about under his careful and watchful eye (and I mean very careful, he’s like your very own bodyguard but with a lot more growling and snapping on strangers than usual), then you’re in his room doing whatever. Watching movies, playing cards and somehow beating him every time (he swears that he isn’t letting you win! Lies), whatever you wanna do. As long as you’re with him, giggling and safe, he’s happy and stress free

You mean so much to Mammon MC, he can’t even tell you if he tries. Under his tsundere traits, he really loves you, like really loves you! He’s just so scared of being rejected and losing you a second time. But now that he knows you’ll always be there for him, he’s going to do the same for you (but he already was even if you didn’t like him) He hates looking at that bruise right now, but it’s set as a reminder to not let something happen to you again

Also, another thing that people forget about Mammon is that he can talk to crows. So it wasn’t much to have them track down the person who caused you pain, and it didn’t take long for him to find them either. He thinks that the aftermath will set a good lesson for everyone else who continues to underestimate him when it comes to you: don’t

Leviathan

See, this is why he never leaves his safe haven AKA his room!

After he saw your head hit the ground hard, he was freaking out. He doesn’t know what to do, he wasn’t prepared for this! He tried shaking you to keep you awake, but your eyes were steady closing

Everything is happening in slow motion. You’re slumped over on the ground while the person who did it is laughing at him

If anything, the person who did it should be the one on the ground, not you, not his Henry. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair!

The demon stopped laughing when their windpipe was getting crushed by the second. They couldn’t even try to loosen the grip, Levi’s tail is rather strong, and so is he. He is the third strongest out of his family and the Grand Admiral of the Navy, yet people tend to forget that

Everyone knows how bad Levi’s tantrums can be, but this isn’t just a tantrum, it’s much worse. Had the brothers not intervene, he would have done much worse than summoning Lotan (which he was on the brink of doing anyway)

When you did wake up, he was so upset. Of course he let this happen, he’s just a worthless otaku who couldn’t even keep his crush safe-

OMG why are you hugging him and patting his head?! Quit it- well wait, this does feel kinda nice...Ugh you’re such a normie! Getting hurt so easily and still trying to put a smile on his face. But it does make him feel better

He rarely left his room before, and you guys are definitely not leaving it now. It’s like having a sleepover, but it never ends. That sounds great, right MC? Endless marathons of TSL and other anime, co-op video games, trying on his cosplay outfits that he made (some even made just for you and he needs to cover that bruise somehow), it’s going to be so fun and you’ll be safe with him! Who wouldn’t want that??

We all know that Levi is very self conscious. He knows that he isn’t confident like Lucifer and Mammon, or attractive like Asmo, or smart like Satan or Belphie, or physically fit like Beel, he knows. But every time you listen to him ramble on about this new anime show that he wants you guys to binge, or when he rants about a stupid move his teammate did in an online match, he feels valued. He feels loved. And while it’s hard for him to express his feelings, it’s no doubt in his mind that you’re important to him, and that he’s beyond happy that someone like you is his best friend

One day he’ll get the courage to say those three words, but he hopes that you already know with everything that he does for you

For example, Levi is an aquatic demon, and he has the ability to communicate with all types of sea creatures. Granted, he knows right from wrong, but in his eyes he’s taking care of the problem. So it wouldn’t be a huge issue if he used them to clean up the remaining mess of said problem, right? I mean, his venom can only do so much, and he doesn’t need anyone questioning him, and Lotan does get hungry...

Satan

He could only see red. Both from his anger surfacing and from the fact that you’re bleeding

He had his claws wrapped around the neck of the one responsible before they could even think about running. This- this filth dared tried to escape after he hurt you? And they thought that Satan would just let them get away with it?

They must forget that he’s the Avatar of Wrath, the one who doesn’t show mercy

He just kept pounding the demon into the ground, over and over and over and over. He didn’t even care about the blood splatter it was leaving on the lockers or on him

He was this close to finishing them off when he heard you call out for him, and it took everything in him to drop them. He squeezed their neck a final time, not even close to being satisfied with the whimper he heard, and growled out a promise of that he will find them and will make sure that they suffer before he threw them down. They better count themselves lucky that they get to crawl away in one piece (for now), because had you not been there-

Oh, he is seething the more he thinks about it

But you bleeding is a distraction from it, even if it is making his stomach turn, it’s helping him know that he needs to help you now

He didn’t have to let his brothers know as they came to see what the commotion was, and Lucifer (even if he didn’t want to believe it himself) was anxious that he was the cause of it. But after he saw the hold he had on you and another demon barely clinging onto life, he knew otherwise

It was decided that you two going home would be the best course of action (which it didn’t matter to Satan, you both weren’t going to stay here whether it was demanded or not), and he calmed down enough to properly treat you

You didn’t leave his room for the rest of the day, and he even gave up his bed for you to lie in so that he can do some research. The human body is a complicated thing, but Satan can learn it like the back of his hand just for you. So just go ahead and rest for now MC- or maybe not, you might have a concussion according to this book and if you do he needs to monitor your condition!

Even after you were healed, he didn’t let you out of his sight and daily checkups were a must. Dr. Satan is in the building!

You eventually moved back into your room (you would have stayed longer but he’s a little nervous with his towering stacks of books and doesn’t want anymore accidents), but he practically moved in with you with how much he comes over, either falling asleep at your desk reading a book or falling asleep in your chair right next to your bed

Very reluctant to have you around stairs, it makes the hairs on his neck stand up. He’ll let you go down the stairs ONLY if you’re holding his hand. If you’re upset with those conditions (spoiler alert you’re not), then you better be ready to learn some teleportation spells (but even then he’s still not leaving your side)

He doesn’t hold his temper back with the others when it comes to you for the time being. If he even senses that Mammon, Asmo, or Levi is coming to you with something that can cause trouble, he’s growling at them to leave you alone, horns slowly coming out and tail whipping furiously

However, he tries not to lash out in front of you. He realizes that he lost control with that demon, and how it could have terrified you had you been fully conscious, but he doesn’t want you to think that he’s just a monster. He wants you to continue to treat him like you do now, and not have the image of bashing someone’s bloody body on the floor repeatedly

Speaking of bashing someone, Satan made well on his promise of coming back. The demon thought that avoiding coming back to school would save them, but Satan is a genius, and has many associates that he can sweet talk to get what he wants. It didn’t take much to figure out where they went, and he made sure to get out all of his pent-up frustrations from that fateful day. He felt better when he came home, but he needed to take a shower before he went to see you...

Besides from that, he does appreciate the peace that you do bring him. You just have this aura around you that’s so calming to him, and he needs to steal you away more he realizes

Also you make better cat-themed desserts than the cafe and he can’t risk Beel eating them all again

Asmodeus

He’s shook, and not in the good way

He just had your hand in his, complaining about how you cuticles look so good and his is lacking and how guys have to go to the nail salon after class, and then your hand is jerked from his, your form at the bottom of the stairs

The blood staining your uniform is alarming, but he can’t worry about that now. He’s trying to keep you talking, but you’re already on the verge of passing out

“MC, you can’t sleep yet! We have plans to go to the nail salon remember? And I need you awake so we can talk about what matching color we’re getting! So what color should we get now, MC? MC? MC!”

He’s trying to keep himself from panicking, but he can’t help it! You’re suppose to be smiling and laughing with you, loving him, but you’re unconscious on the ground, and he’s scared

Quickly dials Lucifer and tells him the whole situation, and he’s surprised to find himself blinking back tears

The demon who did this is long gone by the time Lucifer and Diavolo come, but he remembers the face, and he has something exciting planned when he comes face to face with them

Obviously you have to go home, but Asmo is so distraught that he has to go home with you. But when you wake up, prepare to be tackled to the bed with him crying his eyes out. All you can do is try to comfort him and tell him that okay, giving him little kisses on his cheek

But now that the sadness is out of the way (all this crying and worrying is causing him stress wrinkles), it’s time for a makeover/stress relief!

Fashion shows, makeovers, painting nails, face masks, the whole nine yards. All in the comfort of his dazzling room!

It’ll make you both feel and look better, and honestly you two need that right now. It also gives him the opportunity to cover that unappealing bruise. Your beauty outshines it but it’ll be best to cover it up for your and his sake (mainly his)

Every time Asmo sees your bruise, he gets upset and he’s tired of being reminded of what happened. He knows that he’s only loved for his looks, his vanity, but you see more in him than that

You’re...you’re the first person that loves him for him entirely, not because of his features. And when he tells you that he loves you, he honestly means it. He would have never thought he would fall so deep for someone, let alone a human, but...he’s glad that it’s you. He’s happy that it’s you

Which is why he wants to keep you safe and injury-free. Plus, your skin is too pretty and doll-like to be roughed up!

You guys still go out of course, he just has a better eye on you now. This one incident isn’t going to hold him back for picking out new cute outfits for you!

And don’t think he forgot about that demon who caused all of this in the first place. He actually waited by their locker, and convinced them to come with him. But what should Asmo do with them? He could always have them steal Beel’s food, annoy Lucifer, say something horrible about Ruri-Chan, the possibilities are endless! As long as they don’t cause him to get dirty, of course

Or maybe they should do something so severe that they have no reason than to leave RAD forever, or even leave the Devildom forever, depending on how far he’s willing to take it. He’ll do anything if it means you’re safe and he gets to keep you all to himself

Beelzebub

He thought it was an accident at first, you get so excited about things that you stumble over your own feet sometimes, but he’s always there to catch you or pick you up

You keep saying that you’re okay as he’s holding onto you, and after he sits you up he’s confused because he smells blood. His heart is beating a little quicker, and you’re not talking anymore, and your head is drooping, and that’s when he sees the blood running down the side of your face

He’s starting to panic, and he’s so scared that if he tightens his hold against you he’ll just make things worse, that he’ll just hurt you more. But he needs to go find Lucifer, he needs to get you help, you’re feeling so light in his arms and it reminds him of the Celestial War when he witnessed his sister dying-

He hears someone snickering behind him, and that’s when he loses his temper

You’re a part of his family now, someone that he loves and cares for more than he can describe, and they did this to you? Someone who wouldn’t even squish a bug, someone who made him late night snacks without even asking, always there to give him hugs after his games no matter how sweaty, someone that put his family back together and they did this to you?

Lucifer and Mammon struggled to hold him back after they found the demon flung through the wall, laying under the rubble. Beel just kept growling, fangs bared and wings buzzing. He won’t stop trying to get out of their hold, and he keeps inching closer and closer to the demon, and it’s only a matter of time before he finishes what he started

You were already in the infirmary getting treated, and Beel isn’t calming down anytime soon so you were both escorted home

You woke up to Beel upset and pouting. He’s so worried about you that he couldn’t even eat. Beelzebub could not eat, that’s how you knew this was a something serious

Poor Beel was so terrified of hurting you himself that he failed to protect you from the people that do want to hurt you, or worse

But this won’t happen again, he swears, both to you and himself. Move over Mammon, Beel is officially your new bodyguard!

Wherever you go, Beel is right behind you, literally. He’s like your shadow, just bigger and a lot more...menacing. Also isn’t taking any chances with Mammon’s schemes, just carrying you away before he can even open his mouth about another get rich quick plan

Speaking of carrying, you are not allowed to walk down the stairs anymore. As soon as you step near some you find yourself in his arms like it’s nothing. Both at home and at school, it doesn’t matter to him

Also he’s very cautious to have you around people besides his brothers, and the exchange students (but he’s still hesitant about Solomon, anyone who can cook food like him is automatically getting the side eye)

Also you practically moved in with the twins, and it’s nothing compared to the sleepovers before. Belphie sleeps easier, Beel’s stomach is satisfied (eating your homemade sweets with you is better than everything combined at Hell’s Kitchen, and trust me he knows) he feels all warm inside, and you’re protected. Everyone’s happy!

Beel is a sweet guy, just don’t come in between his family or his food. After that whole incident with the demon, everyone has come to understand that, especially after seeing just how much damage he caused both to the demon and the school in so little time...

Belphegor

If he was sleepy before, he’s completely awake now

You’re holding the side of your head, and he can see the blood seeping through your fingers, groaning in pain. You keep trying to say that you’re okay, but your words are starting to slur and he’s getting nervous, he’s getting scared

It’s reminding him too much of his worst mistake, of what he did to you, when he murdered-

No. He doesn’t need to be thinking about that right now, especially when the person who did this is bragging about it while your body is slumped over. Right there, he knows what exactly needs to be done

Belphie was already in front of them before they even registered it, and didn’t give him any time to form an excuse. His claws were already at their throat, inching deeper and deeper the more they swallowed

“I should just slit your throat now, it’ll be easy and not a lot of work. But you deserve much worse than that. You’ll wish I did by the end of this.”

After a tap to the demon’s forehead, they just collapsed before him, unmoving. He didn’t even look down when he stepped over them (or rather stepped on them) to get to you. You’re passed out, but still breathing. You can’t stay here like this, and he refuses to tell Diavolo or Lucifer. He’ll figure something out, maybe Satan has some books in his room on what to do...

When you woke up, you found yourself wrapped in blankets and Belphie sleeping beside you, arms wrapped tight. You were confused, when did you get home? You remember walking with him down the stairs, but everything was blurry after that. What happen-

“You’re always thinking so hard MC, you’ll never be able to get good rest if you keep that up. But Satan did say to check on you every couple of hours, so I guess it’s fine. And quit touching your head!”

“Oh, sorry Belphie, I didn’t mean to-”

“Tch, how annoying...”

But he’s lying. Even as he’s carefully re-wrapping the bandages, he’s relieved that you’re awake, that your eyes are still full of life, not like the dullness that he saw that fateful night

When Lucifer finds you he is not happy with Belphie, but he doesn’t care and tells him that everything is already under control and that he isn’t needed. Belphie didn’t miss the scowl that he sent his way, but he just smirked in response. You didn’t need Lucifer as Belphie is already taking care of you, as it should be

You know how he always carries around his favorite pillow? Yeah he’s doing that with you basically, minus the carrying. You’re practically attached to his side, wherever he goes you’re either right there with him or in his room, which is mainly just you two lazing around or sleeping (as usual)

Honestly, the only demons who he’s okay with disturbing you two is Beel and maybe Satan. Beel because that’s his twin and it’s his room too, and Satan only if he’s checking on you medically or if he has some new ideas to mess with Lucifer. Everyone else is just trying to bother you and be annoying, and you don’t need that

Of course he blames himself for this! How is he suppose to keep you safe, to make up for his mistake? But then it clicks

It’s not the fact that he’s weak, people think that he’s weak. But he realizes that this is fine, he’ll use that to his advantage.

Diavolo is upset and Lucifer is running out of excuses for him, but Belphie just plays stupid and says he can’t remember how to remove it (even though he does). Let the demon lose some more sleep until they learn their lesson, whether it’s from the constant nightmares or from sleep deprivation trying to stay awake to avoid said nightmares. He’ll remove it when he feels like it, and he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon

Let people think the Avatar of Sloth is weak, that he’s not a threat, and he can show them exactly how wrong they are. Better yet, this demon can be the perfect example, and many more if they become a bother to you (and him)

You’re too nice MC, too delicate. You treat him so good, like he’s not a demon, like he’s not the monster who took your life, and he has to thank you for that somehow. He feels like whatever he does won’t be enough for the kindness you give him, but protecting you from others who used to be like him could be a good start

Also now he can hog all of your head pats and cuddles for himself, and he doesn’t feel bad at all. Everyone else had their time with you when he was locked up, so he’s finally got the opportunity to be selfish

Diavolo

First of all...this demon is dumb enough to harm you in front of him??? The Demon LORD???? The FUTURE KING OF HELL??!

They have more than just a death wish

It all happened so quick, he just crossed paths with you in the hallways and started to ask about your day (and maybe invite you for a small tea date after school) but he didn’t even get the chance to open his mouth

One second he saw your eyes light up and hand extended to excitedly wave, then he saw your fragile form tumbling down the stairs

Barbatos was soon called to his side as Diavolo saw the red coating his palms and you barely staying conscious, trying to say that you’re okay and not to worry

See...he feared that this would be a problem. While Diavolo is a very kind and understanding ruler, there are still some demons out there who think he’s too lenient, too soft. But that’s where people are mistaken. Diavolo is kind, but do not mistake his kindness for weakness

He felt his anger rising, his demeanor starting to crack, but he set aside his emotions. You’re his first priority, and he needs to make sure that you’re okay! He’s still a ruler, and you’re his responsibility (and first love)

However, he made sure that Barbatos took the demon who did this and kept them in the dungeon until he was done treating you. He won’t let this go unpunished, he can’t and he won’t

You’re an important part of the exchange program, and you’re most important to him, and he’s upset with himself that you got hurt. You’re so delicate, and you don’t deserve any of this happening to you, but what can he do? While he trusts the brothers to keep you safe, he wants to keep an eye on you personally, but how?

Then it struck him

You liked to stay in the castle, always smiling and having fun whenever you spent time with him there, so why not relocate you there?? It’ll be like an extended sleepover/retreat with just you two!! You guys can do all of your favorite activities and won’t have to worry about going home because you won’t have to leave!! Why didn’t he think of this sooner?!

The brothers are very upset with this incident, and even more so when he announced this. Diavolo decided that your condition needed to be monitored closely, and since he’s the person directly in charge of the exchange program AND the ruler over the Devildom, there was no room to argue. You weren’t going to stay in the castle forever, just until he deemed it right to return to the HoL

Which would be...some time soon, maybe. He’s not really worried about that now, his number 1 concern is you after all!

You’re getting the royal treatment, literally. This is the chance that he gets to pamper you without interruptions and he is not wasting it!

You kept trying to convince him that you’re fine, but he wasn’t hearing any of it, especially after he sees the nasty bruise that was left. “MC, please! You still need to rest. How about I have Barbatos bring us some tea to help, and we can even have the royal staff bring us some outfits of your choosing if you like? Oo, we can even have our portrait painted!”

“Dia, I promise that I’m fine, you have more things to worry about than me-”

“Nonsense, MC. You’re what’s important to me, now and always. Don’t ever forget that.”

Even finished it with a hand kiss, UGH he really is a Prince Charming

Once you did return to RAD bruise free, Diavolo, being the gentleman that he is, walked with you everywhere in the beginning. Coming into the building, walking to class, lunch, even to the student council meeting, he was by your side. But he couldn’t avoid his duties forever (unfortunately), but he always made up for lost time afterwards

You never realized that when he wasn’t with you, someone else always was. Whether it be Lucifer who miraculously had spare time, or Barbatos who decided to escort you back to the castle to try a new recipe for his Lord, it was always one of them that stayed with you

Also, it never dawned on you why people were starting to be so nice to you. You thought it was because of what happened, not paying attention to how tense they would get, the fear in their eyes. You did notice that the demon who caused your fall never came back to class, and their desk is starting to collect dust...

When you did ask Diavolo about it, he just pat your head and said that what happened was unacceptable and that the demon has been dealt with accordingly.

You don’t need to hear about what really happened to them, he doesn’t want to scare you or taint your innocence! But he doesn’t mind if anyone else hears it, he’ll be more than happy to explain in full detail what happened and what will happen to demons that even think about attempting to harm you or think that he’s “too soft”. They won’t think he’s a soft ruler after that

Diavolo is a very sweet man, one that treats you as if you’re ruling by his side as his partner and one that you never have to be scared of, but even you didn’t miss the deadly glint in his eyes whenever he spoke about that demon...

But enough about that, he wants to try that new recipe that you made just for him!

He enjoys the time that he gets to spend with you, and after this, you’ll be in his company a lot more. He can’t risk having this happen again to his love- I MEAN favorite exchange student right?

#obey me x reader #obey me reader insert #obey me #obey me swd #obey me lucifer x reader #obey me mammon x reader #obey me levi x reader #obey me leviathan x reader #obey me satan x reader #obey me asmodeus x reader #obey me asmo x reader #obey me beelzebub x reader #obey me beel x reader #obey me belphegor x reader #obey me belphie x reader #obey me diavolo x reader

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sockablock · 4 years

Text

(TW for panic attacks and discussions about trauma)

— — —

The thing is, Beau's friends are shit fighters.

To be clear—she's not saying that they're bad at fighting, gods know Veth's a force of nature with her crossbow and all of the spell-slingers can kill with a word—it's just that when it comes to fighting, actual fighting, that down-and-dirty fist-on-flesh shit, her friends suck. Most of 'em just run, or they’d sweet-talk a surrender, or go back to slinging spells.

Beau would never admit she misses the Soul, but at least those people knew how to block. At least Dairon would make her work for it, wouldn't tell her to please, gods, Beau, stop punching me, I give!

Fjord's better these days, but not good enough.

Which is why, on their third morning back in Nicodranas, when Beau opens the door to see Yasha looking restless, she knows exactly what's up.

"Should I get my staff?"

Yasha shrugs. She usually does.

"I'll grab it. Down in five."

Beau considers grabbing some toast too, but she remembers how antsy Yasha seemed and figures she should try to avoid puking in Marion’s yard.

Yasha is stretching when she gets there. The gate swings behind her with a gentle clunk, and she kicks her shoes off, curls her toes in the grass. The sun is barely broken above rooftops and towers, and the first chime of church bells ring out overhead.

Beau yawns a little, but it’s just for flavor. Mind games. She’s not actually sleepy.

“We do not have to—”

She quickly waves her hand. “It’ll wake me up. You know, get the blood pumping.”

Yasha smiles a little at that. It’s always such a small one, but it’s getting to be familiar.

“I got up early. I couldn’t sleep. Er...sorry.”

Beau doubles her effort to be dismissive. “Don’t apologize to me, Yasha. C’mon. You think I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to?”

This seems to be a winning argument. Yasha nods, like she can’t imagine Beau doing anything she doesn’t want.

Maybe it’s the crisp ocean breeze, maybe it’s the way they circle each other in the yard. Maybe it’s the fresh brush of gauze on her fists.

Beau wants to win.

She dives in, pulls low, uses her quick movement to catch Yasha off-guard and get in as closely as she can. Yasha’s tall, broad, strong as an ox, and even holding back, she could wind Beau with a punch. She presses even closer, limiting Yasha’s motions, sweeps out a leg and cuts up when Yasha moves. The two of them duck and weave and push, neither allowing the other an inch, fists flying, blows being blocked and sweat beginning to pour down their backs. Beau lands a hit that leaves Yasha grunting, then stumbles when a wild haymaker knocks her back. It’s clear that Yasha was never taught any form, just scraped it all together by surviving on the moors and her chaotic movement, high endurance, and reckless confidence just make her deadlier.

Beau tries to close in again, but a lucky kick forces her a pace too far. Her knuckles are bruising in that numb, seething way, and so she darts to the side, grabs her staff, vaults up and then arcs her foot to Yasha’s face—

The dance starts again, this time hardwood hitting forearms and on anyone else, Beau might even feel guilty about it. But Yasha barely seems to register the thwack, her teeth bared in a sideways grin, her eyes hard and excited and alive. Beau’s probably wearing the same expression. She hears herself laughing, and knows that she is. Up-swing, down-swing, slide left, throw a punch, block one, dart back, duck and then—

Yasha’s fist catches her right in the gut, sends Beau lurching flat into the dirt. She chokes her own breath, coughs up dust, barely gets an elbow up with Yasha leaning over her, blotting out the sun, raising Beau’s staff for a finishing strike—

Halts.

It’s like watching a tower fall. Yasha staggers back. She drops the staff. She lifts her hands and stares at her palms and Beau hears a mangled breath. Her knees give. She collapses on herself.

Beau scrambles up, aching limbs forgotten.

“Yasha?” she says. “Yasha? Are you—is—what’s wrong?”

Yasha sucks in more air, but that just seems to make things worse. Her shoulders tremble and her lungs sound ragged.

“Aw, shit,” says Beau, “I mean—fuck—uh—”

She half-runs, half-crawls, ‘til she’s at Yasha’s side. She wants to put her hand on Yasha’s arm, thinks better of it, panics a little more. She wishes she were Jester. She wishes she were Cad. They’d know what to do, they’d be better at this than her, anyone, hell, Marius would be better at this than her—

But it’s her, and everyone’s still in the house, so she shakes her head and stamps the fear down.

“Yasha, I...aw, fuck, I’m—I’m here, it’s okay, nothing’s wrong—” clearly something is wrong, idiot, “—I mean, um, you’re safe here, okay? It’ll be alright. I’m here, and I’ll stay if that’s what you want, okay? I won’t go anywhere, if you don’t want. Uh...can you shake your head if you want me to go? Is that...possible, can you—”

A frantic shake.

“Oh good, okay, thank fuck, then I’m here. I’m right here, Yash. I’m not going anywhere.” She tries to pitch her voice calm, takes deep, long breaths, and continues to murmur as reassuringly as she can until after...seconds? Minutes? Yasha’s trembling slows.

There’s a pause. Yasha inhales and lets it go. It’s shaky, but apparently good enough because finally, eventually, she turns and looks back at Beau.

“I’m...okay. I am okay.”

Beau sinks back into the grass. Then she lies down. “Oh, cool. I’m, uh, glad.”

“I’m so—”

She holds up a hand. “Nope. C’mon.” She pats the ground beside her.

“Er...what?”

She pats it again, emphatic. “Lie down. C’mon. I think we’ve earned a break.”

She stares up at the sky while Yasha shifts around, and eventually there’s a gentle thud as she lies down. Seagulls cry in the distance and clouds drift slowly past their heads.

Beau swears, but mentally. A private thing.

“So, uh...do we...want to talk about it, or...?”

Yasha is quiet for a moment. That’s not surprising. Then:

“It...reminded me of when I killed you.”

“What? Oh—”

“Almost killed you,” Yasha amended. “Both times.”

“Right,” says Beau. “That’s...right.”

She thinks about saying—almost. You only almost killed me, so really it’s fine. There’s nothing to worry about. And you kill people all the time anyway, right?

She blinks. “Wait, you kill people all the time, Yasha. Is it always that bad? Shit, does it always...does it always make you feel like this? Only...I don’t think I’ve ever seen you...break like that...”

She regrets the words immediately. Stupid, Beau, that’s a stupid thing to say.

But Yasha answers the question earnestly. “It’s usually different,” she says to the sky. “It usually...doesn’t matter. Er...no, not that it doesn’t matter, it just...”

“Doesn’t matter,” Beau sighs. “No, I...sort of get it. Man, that might be fucked up. Of us.”

Yasha shrugs, which rustles the grass. “It’s how it has always been for me. That is just what life is like.”

“I’m sure Jester would disagree.”

“Jester is...nice. I am not. I...have hurt a lot of people. And not just people who were fighting me, or trying to hurt me, but people who were innocent, who did not need not to be hurt, people who care about me, and, and people who I...”

She trails off. Beau can’t see her face, but right now, selfishly, she is glad for it. She feels anger bubbling up in her stomach.

“You were being controlled,” she says fiercely. “You didn’t do it. Someone made you do it.”

“But...part of that...part of it was still me. Since...since you all freed me, I...I remember parts of it. I remember doing it. Those were my hands.”

Beau can practically hear Yasha’s fist tighten. She definitely feels it when Yasha hits the ground.

“If I was better, or if I was stronger, if I had broken free faster, none of that would have happened, I could have stopped him sooner—”

This time, Beau doesn’t hold back. They’re lying down, so it’s incredibly awkward, but the first thing she can think of is to grab Yasha’s hand.

She sits up, and waves it over Yasha’s face.

“But you didn’t,” she says, then falters, then wants to smack herself. “Fuck, no, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is...” Then she stops. “No, you know what? Fuck it. You didn’t break out faster. And that’s because it was a miracle you managed it in the first place. Yasha, you were being controlled by a devil. You were being controlled by the Chained Oblivion. The fact that you were even a person the first time we met—and you were a person, you were funny, you charged me money to, to, well, you charged me five gold, remember that?”

Yasha blinks. Her wrist is slack in Beau’s grip.

“I...do, yes, I remember that.”

“Right. The fact that you were a person then meant that they couldn’t keep their claws in you. Because you were strong. You were better. Better than everything they tried to make you. You kept breaking free.”

Yasha does not try to squirm away, only stays there.

“But...I needed help every time that I did escape. I never managed it on my own. First it was...it was Kord, and then you all—”

“Of course!” Beau throws her other arm into the air. “Who the fuck could do it on their own?! All that means is that when you had a chance, the second you had a chance, you were outta there. In your heart, you knew what was right. You knew it, and held onto it, even when I’m sure it would’ve been so easy to stay there, to stay in that hell and just go through the motions and lose yourself in...in grief, and loss and...and all that. But you didn’t. And now look at you.”

She cracks a goofy smile, all desperation to make what she’s trying to say heard.

“You’re an angel, Yasha. Remember?”

Yasha slowly sits up too. Her hair cascades down her shoulders, black turning white, with little blades of grass.

Beau is made painfully aware of the fact that she’s still holding Yasha’s hand. She lets go. Then she swears again, and hopes that Yasha doesn’t think it’s because of anything s—

“I am, aren’t I?”

Her gaze shoots up and Yasha's wearing a goofy smile too. Small, a bit nervous, but real and warm.

It’s getting to be familiar.

Beau snorts. She snorts so loud that it might dislodge something in her chest. She hits Yasha gently on the arm.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t, uh, don’t let it go to your head.”

She can see Yasha nodding in the corner of her eye.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Then, after a brief battle over whether or not to bring it up, “I don’t...I don’t...for the record, I’m not mad about you stabbing me. Or whatever.”

Yasha looks stricken, and Beau regrets it instantly. “Shit, should I not have reminded you of—”

“No,” Yasha sighs, and her face softens. “No. I am...glad that you are not mad at me.”

“Should we, like...go to a cleric about this?” Beau asks. “Is this going to be something that happens in, like...fights? Because if it does, it might put you in danger. Also, it’s...it probably sucks for you. Right?”

Fjord would probably have something to say about the way she’s handling this conversation. He’s not here now.

“I...don’t know,” Yasha says eventually. “It hasn’t happened before. It was only...just now. And...just with you. It...hurting you reminded me of being controlled. It...brought me back to all the times that my mind was not my own.”

“I’m sorry,” Beau says, because she’s not sure what else to say.

“No,” says Yasha. Beau looks up, surprised by the weight in her words. “If I am not allowed to be sorry to you, you cannot be sorry to me.”

“Ah,” says Beau. She feels a grin pulling. “In that case...I’m not sorry.”

Yasha nods, like this is sacred, and Beau can’t help but snort again.

“C’mon,” she says. “We can...work this shit out later. Or start to. With a cleric if you want, or not, if you don’t. But I just got my ass kicked, and I’m thirsty. What do you say to some drinks? I think there’s juice. Do you like juice?”

She stands up, and sticks out a hand.

Yasha takes it.

“Okay. I like juice.”

— — —

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tsukkisbean · 4 years

Photo

how they cheer your up | headcanons

genre: fluff

characters: iwaizumi hajime, miya osamu, terushima yūji, kunimi akira x gn!reader

warnings: none!

a/n: hello if you’re seeing this, that means my scheduled post worked, yay!! hopefully this shows up in the tags otherwise i’ll have to reupload it at a later time (sorry in advance if that’s the case hehe). i’m also trying my hand at writing for other characters so hopefully this does their characters justice??

anyways, i hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy and happy! if you requested something from me, sorry i haven’t gotten to it even though i said i would. i’ll try my best to complete them when i get the chance, thank you for being patient with me 💖 all boys after iwaizumi are under the cut!

iwaizumi hajime

best boy iwaizumi would without a doubt use exercise as a way to cheer you up

but don’t get me wrong, he’s not going to force you to run a marathon or anything like that

i imagine him taking you to one of those entertainment/game parks (not really sure what they’re called ahh) where you guys just hang out all day

when you get there, he’ll immediately take you to the batting cage so you can just channel out all your anger into your swings

once your blood is pumping from the adrenaline he’ll take you to the trampoline area where you guys just bounce around and do flips into the foam pit to burn off all your extra energy

you’ll just be chilling, jumping up and down on one of the trampolines, your back turned to iwaizumi when he straight up scoops you up and tosses you in

he’s cackling and dying of laughter and when he finally offers to help you out you grab his hand and pull him in

when he doesn’t resurface you get nervous, where could he be?

from the corner of your eye you see the foam rumbling slightly but you react too slowly and iwaizumi pops out and tackles you in the biggest hug, peppering kisses all over your face and people are staring as you scream your head off trying to pry him off of you

for dinner, you guys indulge in all the greasy food the park has to offer, and by the end you’re stuffed

to help with digestion you suggest a game of mini golf which iwaizumi gladly agrees to

for someone who played volleyball his aim is absolutely horrifying

he argues that the windmill is IMPOSSIBLE to get a good score on and no one can ever get a hole in one

luck must have been on your side because you get a hole in one right after (and so does the small child behind you guys, but you choose not to tell him that)

you end up destroying him (he lowkey hints that he let you win but we know that’s not the case)

when the park closes, instead of taking you straight home, he’ll take you to a nearby park and the two of you just stroll around enjoying the chill of the night and the stars in the sky

miya osamu

he pulls you onto the couch next to him and the two of you look through baking videos on youtube and osamu being osamu cannot decide because he wants to make them all

eventually you guys settle on a cake recipe by cooking tree (a/n: 10/10 would recommend watching them, their videos are super soothing and aesthetic esp if you enjoy cooking asmr!!)

so at 9pm you guys set off to the grocery store to buy the ingredients you guys are missing

the trip takes much longer than expected because osamu keeps putting in more and more snacks that you guys definitely don’t need

so instead of shopping osamu is trying to grab as many snacks as you can while you trail behind, trying to put them away because your pantry is already way too full

by the time you get home it’s close to 12 and you’re tired but osamu insists that you guys start now

for the most part all goes well, you guys manage to get the batter to look smooth in the cake pan (definitely some playful flour throwing here and there)

the real problem is assembling the cake. at this point you’re wondering why you guys decided on a 3-layered cake that required cutting

teases you for cutting the first layer slanted and so you pass over the cutting to him but his slicing work is just as bad and you just have to bring up the fact that he owns a restaurant but apparently his knife skills suck

you thought cutting the cake would be a problem?? now you guys have to fill the layers and it’s a complete disaster; there’s whipped cream just everywhere and at this point you guys are half filling the cake half throwing it at each other

cake ends up being iced unevenly but that’s the least of your problems

you guys pour the decorative icing on top and instead of running over the sides only slightly, it drips messily down the cake and onto the counter and now you guys have a blob of a cake

you guys spend the rest of the night cleaning up and pass out on the couch and in the morning you guys enjoy a sweet breakfast together <3

terushima yūji

terushima is a free soul and so he believes expressing yourself through art is one of the best ways to feel better

when he sees that you’re down, he’ll immediately whip out all of his salon products and pull you into the bathroom

he takes you by surprise saying that he wants you to whatever you want to his hair - today his hair is your canvas

at first you’re reluctant, but he insists - as a hair stylist it’s all about experimentation with styles and colours and plus he can easily fix whatever you do considering that it is his job after all

so you guys scroll through pinterest together, trying to find some fun hair ideas that you’d be able to pull off on your own (with some instruction from teru of course)

you finally decide on a style and so together start on getting all the hair dye ready

he explains to you the different types of develops and how important they are in the hair colouring process - there are different volumes and will essentially affect how much your hair colour changes

after all the colours are mixed and ready to go, you gingerly grab a piece of hair, constantly checking your phone to make sure you’re doing it exactly like the photo

meanwhile terushima has the softest smile on his face, watching you through the mirror - he thinks you look absolutely adorable with the way your brows are furrowed and your tongue sticks on slightly as you focus

as you run the colour brush along his hair, he’s constantly encouraging you, telling you what a good job you’re doing and how he’s so excited to the end product

while the dye sits in his hair, you sit in his lap

once it’s time to wash out the hair dye, you bring him to the sink and carefully run your hands through his hair, trying your best to give him the best head massage he’s ever had!!!

after toning and a hair treatment, your masterpiece if finally done!! ofc being the boyfriend he is, he takes a million photos and posts them on social media to show how talented his significant other is - like not only is it your first time dying someone’s hair but you managed to pull off RAINBOW hair!! (a/n: think sehun from exo as a reference hehe) he literally will not shut up about you to his clients tomorrow

kunimi akira

kunimi has a rep for being lazy and just overall a really nonchalant kind of person but he’s sharp, so when you’re feeling down he immediately picks up on it even if he doesn’t confront you about it

however i don’t think he’d be as aggressive as the other three and do something huge rather he tries to make you feel better only in smaller ways and it definitely adds up

like in the morning he’ll make you coffee or tea or whatever you want - orange juice, a bakery bun? he’ll make an excuse saying he wanted something from the convenience store anyways and head down. when he comes back with three bags of food and drinks he’ll insist that he just grabbed whatever he saw because he was “too lazy to decide” n b d

throughout the day he’ll be a lot more affectionate than usual, hugging you whenever he gets the chance, maybe even a kiss on your forehead

when you tell him you want to go out on your own for a bit he doesn’t argue - whatever you need to do but when your back is turned he’ll slip you a handwritten note telling you to enjoy your alone time and that he l-word you and it’s even signed off with a teensy teensy heart that you almost don’t notice

when you get back, you’re greeted with the smell of your delicious food mixed with a burning smell and on the kitchen table you see takeout from your favourite restaurants and in the garbage is a black burnt mess - kunimi insists he doesn’t know how it got there even though its quite obvious

you bring the food to the living room and to your surprise there’s a blanket fort set up with pillows spread out all across the floor

when you try to question him, he just shrugs saying that it’s not that hard to throw a blanket over a couple of chairs, even a baby could do it

today he lets you choose the movie even though it’s technically his turn and when you choose a comedy he doesn’t complain about the obnoxiously loud and hot headed lead character

when the movie is over, he quickly cleans up all the trash, making sure you don’t have time to move from your spot

when he comes back, he flops on top of you, holding you close

then he plays the spotify playlist that he made for you; it’s a whole mix of songs - slow, upbeat, instrumentals - anything he thought might help you feel even the tiniest bit better

and so you guys just lay there not speaking, enjoying each other’s presence until you fall asleep

#haikyuu imagine #haikyuu scenario #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #miya osamu #iwaizumi hajime #terushima yuji #kunimi akira #osamu x reader #iwaizumi x reader #terushima x reader #kunimi x reader #clara click clacks

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theharellan · 3 years

Text

Written for Stories of Thedas Volume II. Pairing: Solas & Cole (platonic) Prompt: Library

Masks upon masks. The Winter Palace is strange to Cole, who attends at the Inquisitor's bidding and finds himself at a loss for how to help. Solas comes upon him with ideas for how to cope with the deadly Game.

Read on AO3.

Couples spin on the dance floor, turning and turning, going nowhere and everywhere at once. Their heads fill with daydreams, one gazes into her partner’s eyes through their masks, imagining the hidden corners they could lose themselves in. Another, all he sees is the faint outline of a knife in his companion’s skirts, so all-consuming he almost forgets the steps. A third, their eyes bore holes into the other’s heads, hate springs from love eternal. His eyes dart from one couple to the next, glimpses into minds fraught with thoughts of a Game no one ever really wins.

He breathes in and feels the air catch in his throat. Honeyed words mask the taste of poison, cold compassion, they understand only so they can hurt. It isn’t right, it isn’t fair, it isn’t–

In the blink of an eye he’s in the library, surrounded by pages that whisper the words of yesterday. Not so sharp against his skin. Below, a dead man in the shape of a Warden pretends to stare at a plaque, praying no one will look at him twice, fearing they might see his valourous wings are clipped. It’s still a hurt, a tangle, but he’s trying to help. Cruelty does not become him. He lets out a breath he forgot he was holding, hands coming together to pull at his sleeves.

Oh.

He had forgotten about the uniform. The fabric doesn’t come away at his touch, no matter how hard he tugs.

And he misses his hat.

Cole wonders how long he will wait here, alone with his panic clawing at his throat. In the Spire he spent months isolated, forgotten by all save the one who no longer cares to know him. Suddenly the soft, inviting lights which illuminate the halls of the Winter Palace seem as cold as the dark cells they had kept Rhys in, clapped in irons for crimes Cole committed. Anxiety squeezes every inch of him. He counts the beats of the music that drifts from the distant dance hall, just to assure himself only minutes have passed since he came here.

A door opens behind him, and he nearly jumps into shadow, the Veil waiting to envelop him, drawing him from prying eyes, but a familiar face waits on the other side. “Solas!” he gasps, relieved and ashamed that he had doubted, but grateful most of all.

Solas shuts the door behind him, turning the handle so the latch doesn’t make a sound. “I thought I might find you here.”

That gives Cole pause. He hadn’t known he would find himself here, until it happened. “But I don’t read.” The books here are newer than those kept in the Pit, some hum with the occult, others recount poems about the shape of a woman’s hips, but he still doesn’t read. There isn’t a question in his tone, but Solas hears it, all the same.

“This place can be overwhelming for anyone, even without accounting for your abilities. Books carry meaning, but without eyes upon them those meanings are static. Far easier to take in,” he answers as he walks towards him, gait stiffer than usual. His feet had forgotten what it was like to wear shoes. Solas has been quiet that evening, quieter than usual, the stem of a glass glued between his fingers, bottomless. He lets his hat do his talking for him, the Drasca’s dissent lived on atop his head. He stops beside Cole, leaning upon the marble rail, gloved hands bearing weight. His eyes turn upon him, no brimmed hat to hide behind. “Are you all right?”

He pulls on his sleeves, this time he thinks he feels a thread come loose. “Yes... No? There are two faces for every person.” The Left Hand smiles and laughs, she comes alive, but inside it’s cold and cruel. The rose withers upon the vine. He finds the thread with his finger and pulls, but it doesn’t break. It unravels, further and further, if he keeps going his whole sleeve will be an unspooled mess on the floor. “I don’t know which to look at. I-I don’t know how to help.”

Solas reaches out, subduing his worrying hands with a single, steady touch. A gentle gesture, despite the blood which stains them. Sometimes they do not seem so different from his own, they remember the bodies because forgetting would be worse. Killer’s hands, but there is no deceit in their tenderness. Solas wraps the thread around his finger, string bright white against his brown glove, and he tugs. It snaps, suddenly brittle, and falls to the floor to be swept away by a servant who will never know they were here. A comforting hand is placed deliberately on his shoulder blade, and Cole stills. He inhales, eyes snapping from the abandoned thread to Solas. There is kindness in his eyes, quiet assurance. He has seen this all before and he will make it easier to bear. So many tricks just to make it through a day, an evening, an hour. “You will not find much compassion in these affairs, any help you offer will be perceived as duplicitous, a means to get what it is you desire.”

“Then I… shouldn’t help?”

He hesitates, delaying his answer with a moment’s deliberation. “The choice is ultimately yours, but their comfort should not come at the cost of your peace of mind.” His hand slowly falls from his back as Cole turns his advice around in his head. “While we are waiting for the Inquisitor to call upon us, rather than mend the missing pieces in strangers’ lives, perhaps I may help you.”

“Help me?” He searches Solas’ eyes for answers, compassion seeking solace in pride. They are quiet, revealing only as much as intended. Cole chips at the cracks in the rock and hopes for water to spring forth, but he guards his sorrows like a wolf guards her den.

“Would you care to learn how to dance?”

A dozen thoughts pile into the spirit’s head, most too quick to catch, but he grasps one by the tail. “Do spirits dance?”

Solas claims spirits are people, and each day that belief is realer in Cole’s own mind, reinforced by the Herald and Solas himself. He need not change to be loved, or understood, he need only be himself. But if he is a person, then he is not a person the way Varric is, or Cassandra, or even Solas. There’s a touch of sadness in the corner of his smile, as though he is sorry the question needs to be asked. “I suppose it falls to us to answer together,” he replies patiently with an offered palm.

Uncertain how it will help, but ready to trust that it can, he takes Solas’ hand.

“Listen closely,” he says, but he declines to speak again. Cole’s instruction takes a different turn, a manicured glimpse through a window into Solas’ soul.

“Delicate hand folded like a paper crane between my shoulders, her eyes shine like the gold she deals in when I take to the dance.” Josephine had poured so much into tonight, all her smiles and favours, anything that will see the Inquisition prevail. “She didn’t think you would be asked to dance, but she was afraid if you didn’t learn, someone would.”

“Her time was likely better spent elsewhere,” he agrees, “though nothing would have given me more pleasure tonight than refusing one of Celene’s court. Listen again, parse the thoughts which cloud the memory and see how we move.” Cole nods, and concentrates. He remembers the palm tucked in the valley between Solas’ shoulders, and he moves his there. His feet, too, he moves in line with his hips. It’s strange, focusing upon his own body and the space it takes up in the world. Lighter now that he has chosen compassion, but still very much real, empty only in the seconds the air rushes from the chambers of his lungs.

He feels eyes upon him, questioning, searching for confirmation before the music dares move them. “I’m ready.”

When Solas steps forward, Cole steps back, like they’re two puppets on the same musical string. He clips his strides, travelling farther faster than Solas can hope to without magic to carry him there. Awkward at first, but with each beat he feels him join with the dance that exists in his head. Old melodies, half-remembered, play in distant memories. Like the sky he knew it, once, but made himself forget. Dancing wasn’t always this way, was it?

Solas remembers. Feet too full of motion to keep his thoughts safe in his head, they spill onto the fabric of the world where Cole breathes them like his own. Memories of moving on a dancefloor to a familiar tune, swaying with the stars themselves, spinning until they parted from the earth. He swells with pride, a beast alive beneath his ribcage, it thrives and fights and inspires. When they dance the heavens and the earth move, and an empire holds its breath. It fears what dread the dawn will bring, but his People find freedom in the impromptu steps.

“What are you two doing here?” A voice snaps the string. Halamshiral looks different than it did heartbeats ago, all the magic hidden in dark corners (all the elves, too). When Cole turns to see the servant who disturbed them, he’s surprised to see a bare face behind her plain mask, and a second later cannot recall why.

With silver eyes she stares at him, unblinking. “She can see me.”

“A consequence of our dance, I believe.” Yes, he can feel it. Solas fades with each passing second, growing distant as his hand falls from his waist. “It will fade in a moment.” He speaks as though she is not there, but he’s waiting. It’s another dance, only it’s Cole’s turn to lead.

Cut loose, he turns his attention to the woman. Fear flows through her veins, the dagger beneath her sleeve is ready to open theirs. Beneath the steel, her heart wavers. Stranded between duty and love. “I’m warning you-”

“There’s still time,” he says. “She waits for you beside the fountain where you wished away Your Lady’s collection.” There were wiser things to do with gold, but oh how they’d laughed with every dream plunged into the water.

Cole steps forward and she braces, but not fast enough. “Forget.”

Time is unmade behind her eyes, and she slips the mask from her face to rub the last place she’d been kissed. Gone as quickly as she came, with new purpose in her step.

“It seems you found a way to help someone, after all,” Solas remarks after the library door has shut behind her. “You never fail to impress.”

Something in him shines brighter, bolstered by his pride. “Thank you.” He falters, looking down at his feet, curling his toes inside their boots. “I’d like to try another dance, if you think there’s time.”

A laugh coloured wine red parts Solas’ lips, punctuated by a snort that makes Blackwall down below look around for its source. “I believe there is time for one more,” he says, outstretched palm seeking Cole’s hand. “Since you have devised a way to put off intruders, I daresay we have all the time in the world.”

It isn’t a lie, but neither is it true. Like the golden caprice coins that shine beneath the lovers’ reunion, Solas’ words glow like wishes.

#dragon age #solas #cole dragon age #cole #storiesofthedas2 #storiesofthedas #a pain you can't heal ( cole )#( my writing )#wicked eyes & wicked hearts ( quests )#[ this was actually started like a year ago as a warm-up for adding cole to my multi so i figured i'd finally finish it... ]#[ pls dont make me repost this tumblr ]

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nanoland · 3 years

Text

new chapter (supernatural fic)

(Also on AO3.)

Clean Hands, part 4

Crowley/Dean Winchester/Castiel

Warning: Demon deals, violence, mention of abuse and torture. Also: Crowley is an abuse + addiction survivor and also a cold-hearted arsehole with very little respect or empathy for abuse + addiction survivors, and this story is written from his POV.

What was there to be done when you were enamoured of a man who hit you?

Leave him! the whole world cried back in one voice.

Which was a bit like telling someone trapped in a burning car to get out of the car. Yes. Quite. Thank you. Fully agree. But what if, for a moment, you assumed I wasn’t as stupid as a fucking dog?

That, incidentally, was one of a handful of ways the world had worsened since Crowley last drew breath.

Back in the fourteenth century, the women in the marketplace had noted his black eye and torn dress with immediate understanding. Instead of insisting he pack his bags and walk out of the house belonging to his wealthy shoemaker husband, the father of his child, the man on whom his safety and good reputation and continued ability to eat depended, the man he, for some fucking reason, still loved, they’d actually tried to help.

Sybil had given him willow bark for the pain. Rose had engaged him in long, rambling conversations, stretching the minutes until he had to return home. Jane had walked across the village and rapped on his door every evening she could, always armed with solid excuses, just when the bastard was well and truly in his cups and looking for something to damage.

If ever analytical minds were to try to account for Crowley’s misanthropy and sadism, they couldn’t honestly conclude that either was due to his never experiencing true, heartfelt human kindness.

Yes, Sybil and Rose and Jane had all thought he was a woman and addressed him accordingly, and it had hurt. But that wasn’t their fault. He’d not had the courage to tell them otherwise.

Crowley didn’t regret much. Regret, in this game, was a slow-killing poison.

Still, he did occasionally wonder how things might have turned out if he’d accepted Jane’s invitation and fled with her to London that one warm night, rather than hanging in for years until he finally snapped and beat his husband’s skull into tooth-sized pieces with an iron kettle.

Returning to the present:

As Crowley watched Dean’s fist barrel towards his face, and not for the first time, he reviewed the pros and cons of incinerating him with hellfire.

When fist and nose were one millionth of an inch apart, he teleported across the room.

“Squirrel,” he sighed, “this has nothing to do with you.”

Dean charged and took another swing at him. “Fuck you! He worked so hard! Clean for four years, you piece of shit!”

This time, Crowley reappeared sitting on top of the dead man’s wardrobe, where Dean couldn’t reach him. “Good for him. His family and friends won’t remember him as the thieving, lying wretch he was ten years ago when he sold his soul for a pound of meth. They’ll probably give him a nice funeral.”

“Why couldn’t you make an exception? Just once?”

“That’s not how this works, Dean! It wasn’t even my deal! The contract is in the hands of a relatively inexperienced subordinate and honestly, I’m glad that she pulled it off. She’s got potential. This is her first real win. It’ll increase her standing in Hell and make her more powerful, which will be useful because some older demons have taken to bullying h-…”

“I don’t give a damn about your minions,” he snarled, picking up a lamp sprinkled with blood and throwing it at him. Crowley ducked. “Every last one of you can take an angel blade to the face, for all I care. You’re fucking parasites.”

Evenly, Crowley replied, “Yes. We are. You know that. You’ve always known that. Why are you having a fit about it now? Good people get dragged to Hell all the time.”

Dean stared down at what remained of Martin Booke, now that the hellhounds had left. “He worked so hard. Christ. You could have made an exception. He came to us and I swore I’d help him out.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have cocking well done that, should you?” Crowley cried, throwing up his hands.

Eyes wet, Dean sneered at him. “Parasite. Get out of my sight before I wring your evil neck.”

Crowley left.

Upon arriving back in Hell, he went to the Admissions Department.

The soul of Martin Booke was sitting in one of the cheap blue plastic chairs, knees drawn up to his chest. Probably still reeling from the trauma of the hounds ripping his throat out, though no damage was evident on his form now.

“Mr Booke,” Crowley said, sauntering up with his hands in his pockets. “Could you come with me, please?”

A door appeared in the nearest wall and swung open silently.

Once they were both standing inside Crowley’s office, it swung shut and dissolved into nothingness.

Moving to his liquor cabinet, Crowley said, “I hear you’re a Harvard man.”

“Um… y-yeah. Yes. I was.” Thin voice. Midwestern accent.

“Promising career ahead of you before things – ah – went awry.”

Booke swallowed. “Tom. First boyfriend. Got me into meth. Got me into a lot of stuff. I figured it was okay because we were gonna be together forever and as long as I had him, I’d be fine. Then he went and died and I had to pick up the pieces on my own.”

Smiling thinly, Crowley said, “Isn’t romance grand? As it happens, you may still get your happily ever after. Thomas Abbott is currently waiting in the eternal queue – which, ordinarily, is where you’d be headed.”

“Yeah. Dean told me. Although… um…”

“You have a question? Spit it out. Cowards bore me.”

“Dean said that when you sell your soul, you go to Hell and demons torture you until you become a demon. But he also told me about the queue thing. So that’s confusing. I mean, queuing sucks but it’s not torture.”

Crowley poured himself a glass of bourbon and sat down behind his desk. “Clever boy. Yes; when I became King of Hell, I restructured things. Most of you end up in the queue. The hot knives and whips are a speciality service and, as such, are reserved for our elite clientele. The pedos and Nazis and so forth – and, of course, anyone who pisses me off too much. As for the process of becoming a demon; that doesn’t actually require torture. I know! Surprised me too! We always thought it did, back when Lilith was in charge. Then I started running some tests and it turns out that becoming a demon is a bit like catching a virus; it’ll happen to anyone who hangs around other demons long enough. Everyone in the queue will have black eyes by the end of their first century.”

Booke took off his glasses and nervously rubbed them on his sleeve. “You said that ‘ordinarily’ I’d go to the queue. So am I an – uh – ‘elite client’?”

“Hah! No. Your little life was staggeringly boring and barely impacted anyone in ways either negative or positive. No, the reason you’re here is Harvard. See, I had a snoop and it seems that before you dropped out, you were getting bloody good grades.”

A wistful smile. “I guess. Had big dreams, once.”

Sipping his bourbon, Crowley said, “On track for a Master’s in aeronautical engineering, I believe.”

“Yep. I wanted to work for NASA.”

“Cards on the table, Booke: I might have a job for you. There is, at present, space in one or two of our departments for a man with your talents. But first I need to ask a question.”

He cocked his head. “Um. Sure? Anything’s better than what I was expecting. Shoot.”

“Do you know how to crash a spaceship?”

#drowley #supernatural #crowley #dean winchester #spn crowley #fanfic #my fic #drowstiel

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liliesoftherain · 4 years

Note

I request a fluffy barbarian au where Bakugou is crushing on this thick, badass viking lady and shes like I will only marry you if you can beat me in a fight.

A/N: Anything for you bb(; I enjoyed writing this request, and just so y’all know I did some rough google translates for the words so don’t sure me if something’s wrong haha

Title: The Barbarian King

Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x Reader

Katsuki Bakugou!:

“Another weak man, who thinks he can beat our (y/n).”

The giggling females behind him as he passed only served to fuel his anger, the raging roses blooming across his cheeks causing their giggles to increase. These women didn’t care that he was a king, that didn’t matter to them here. Here was a town counted as a free for all trading market, and in the district, mainly vikings and other Nordics took place in this residence for trading and sales. Status here didn’t matter, your value as a tradesman and the quality of your products were the only things that did.

Katsuki had walked towards your area, seeing the way your broad back moved as you helped load a wagon of goods. He glanced at your face and saw a bead of sweat drip down your neck and below your collarbone down your shirt. However his gaze traveled back up to your face as you looked up at him through your lashes from your crouched position, you gave him a smirk as you looked away from his stare.

“What is it now, your terribleness?” You spoke out in the common language, lifting a large vase into the cart before smacking your hands together to get off the dust.

You turn to the man behind you, that teasing smile still on your face as you glanced over him. He was flashy for a Barbarian King, but you assumed that was the whole point. Furs lined his cape and boots, fine leather lined his legs for his pants as well as his belt and arm bands, and while he remained shirtless, his chest was covered in battle scars and intricate tribal tattoos. He was a fine man, maybe not as built as some of the men in your home village, but he was a sight to behold for sure.

“You know why I am here, leubh.”

“Is that so, Aldrnari? And what did I say about calling me leubh, hm?”

Bakugou clicked his tongue at the nickname of flame in your native tongue, your teases doing nothing more but rile him up enough where he felt the burning of desire dance along his skin.

That’s why he was here after all.

“I do not like to repeat myself, leubh. You are going to accept my bindan, yes.”

You hummed while you turned away from him, speaking in your tongue to the trader who you were making the sale with before getting your dirhems. You thanked the trader once more for his business before he walked off, and only then did you turn back to the adonis ruler, who had only starred as he awaited your response.

“Your terribleness, I already told you I am not your love, your leubh. I have my rules-”

“Then I am willing to do what it takes, leubh. You shall be mine.” He growled out lowly, muscles twitching in anticipation to hold your toned body against his own.

Even if he had to beat you first.

You were packing your leather satchel with whatever little belongings you had brought, considering you had only come today with the items for your trade, and were preparing to endure the trek home.

“Are you now, Aldrnari. I do not think you have what it takes to challenge me for my hand.”

Bakugou, now annoyed, snatched your wrist to make you face him as he was ignoring the constant flow of people walking by. You only stared at him in amusement, knowing you could break his wrist if you really felt threatened.

This King wasn’t as fearful as everyone made him out to be, you could see the kitten soul underneath the lion’s exterior. You were interested in the man, surely you didn't know what lady wouldn’t be, but you had rules, morals. You had to keep true to yourself, and that was a man who could triumph in battle. You had no room for a man with a weak will.

“I will challenge you because that is what you ask of me. I bow to no one but my kwoeniz, my queen, and that is what you shall be.”

You bite your lip to hide a smile, merely removing your wrist from his hold and placing your hand upon your waist instead.

“You are certain of yourself, kǫttr.”

“Koh-tah?...” Bakugou blinked at you in confusion, eyebrows furrowed at the word he hadn’t heard you use before, butchering it with his dialect.

“Kǫttr. Baby cat, that is what you are.”

“Huh!? I am a kuningaz, a King. Not a kattuz. Wōd wíf.”

You laugh at his face, which was pulled into a frown, before walking down the path once more. You heard the rustling of his cloak and the clanking of his tribal birthright, the necklaces of fangs that hung from his neck as a warning, a name, an indication all at once.

“I may be a ‘crazy woman’ as you say, but it is the truth. You are soft, sweet like a babe with the heart of a león, a fierce cat.”

You both walked side by side as you walked down the path, enjoying the creek beside you and the whispering willows along the way. The sun would be setting shortly, giving you enough time to head home.

If it wasn’t for your stalker hot on your trail.

“I am fierce, yes. Loyal and true. It’s shall be my duty to protect you-”

You stopped suddenly, a snarl pulled at your lips as you pushed him away.

“Am I not able to protect myself, veslingr?” You hissed an insult in his face.

“That is not-”

“I may be a woman, but I am no means unable. Understand this well, Bakugou, I am not meant to be bound and be made a slave.”

He sighed, overall agitated with your stubbornness and failure to understand.

“Dúfa, you are as free as that in which I call you, Dove.”

“Gjof ser ae til gjalda.”

“I do not understand, leubh.”

“A gift always looks for a return. You shall expect a service far lesser than what I deserve, Víkar.” You called his title in your language as you spit on the ground, a bit disrespectful but he had insulted your pride.

You would not let that go.

His glare did not waver, as neither did yours. The tension was thick, you swore there were sparks in between the both of you, bright enough to blind and hot enough to scar.

“Let us settle this then, (y/n), we shall fight. When I win, you shall accept bindan, our binding. No going back on your word.”

You looked up at his towering form, staring down through your nose with narrowed eyes.

“I never go back on my word, that I can say with honor. You know how I feel about honor, Aldrnari.”

“Yes, to be without silver is better than to be without honor. You have said so many times, leubh. Come now, I have not all day.” His wickedly cocky grin spread across his face as he crouched low, preparing to strike.

You only clicked your tongue back, going into your own fighting stance. The wind blew by, and your eyes narrowed in signal. You jumped up, landing powerful blows onto his large arms as he staggered back from the force. You grew annoyed however, only seeing the powerful man defending.

“You are not attacking, Bakugou! Do you think so little of me!?”

You kicked his stomach, sending him flying back as you tried to regain control of your emotions FIghting with anger was like fighting with the intent to die, and that’s what you were trying to avoid. Hell, with how many times you have won over a man who had asked for your hand, you should just become a part of the wise Volur! A woman married to that of her magic and healing than to a man.

“I think too highly of you, that is my problem.”

Bakugou got behind you faster than you could have anticipated, securing you from behind. You thrashed, but he held tight, leaning in close to your ear.

“(y/n), I have won. You have said that all I needed to do to win your heart was to fight you, so be it-”

“You have been running and defending, not attacking!”

“I have never once said I would attack you, my eardlufu beorht, dear light. I have respect for you as a woman, as my kwoeniz, as a fighter. I shall protect you, as I hope you shall protect me.” He maneuvered in front of you, kneeling on the ground as he still held your hands tight.

The smoldering look on his face made your breath catch in your throat. He was serious, as serious as you could see. There was no falsehood, no games, just pure honesty pouring from his soul.

“The eyes of a maid, tell true, to whom her love she has given..” You whispered softly to yourself.

“Huh!? Maid- I am trying to be honest, yet you call me a maid?” His exasperation was clear, and it caused you to bark out a laugh.

“You are not the maid, you fifl! Fool! I am saying the eyes are a gateway to the soul, and while you are not a maid, you have the eyes of one. An honest opening to your heart, elskan mín.”

His stare did not waver, but instead of rage it held compassion. It held that of a caring man who you knew you couldn’t hide from, yet that would not stop you from teasing.

“However, it is that you have not won against me. How shall one win if he does not fight, hm?”

He flicked your forehead as he stood, causing you to huff in response to the surprise attack.

“Now I have, I have attacked yet not hurt you. Because for the rest of my days I shall be at your beck and call for your safety, as you will mine. We shall be equals, I will not be above you. I will give my heart, my life, my title, and my own safety to insure yours. As you will mine. We shall fight hand in hand, love hand in hand, and be hand in hand for forever until eternity. You said it yourself, I am elskan pín, your love.”

Your cheeks grew warm as you heard the words spilling from his mouth, he knew you had called him your love?

“How did you know what I had said? How do you know those words-”

He placed a thumb over your lips as he held your chin with his hand, a soft smile forming as he stared into your eyes.

“It is as you say, Inn matki munr. ‘The mighty passion’ that we share gives me the incentive to learn your native tongue, as I hope it does for you.”

“You leaned into his touch, not wanting to fight off your feelings any longer. It was true, while he may not have attacked you, he fought for your love countless times. You knew what he was capable of, and Bakugou was a man who was not fearful of heart. He was a passionate man who made a great King, who would make a great husband.

“It shall, well it has. I accept your offer, Víkar. With my life in your hands and yours in mine, I accept it all.”

He let out a loud yell of victory, startling you further as he lifted your large frame off the ground and spun you around. You were by no means a small woman, proving further of his strength.

“It is settled!”

“Unhand me or else, Katsuki!”

The sound of his name leaving your lips caused a shiver to run down his spine as he did what you told, gently placing you on your feet. He kissed you eagerly as you did the same, before he pulled back and rested his forehead against yours.

“Að unna, Katsuki.”

“Ic lufie þē, (y/n).”

And you both did, love each other very much, the soul never lies.

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morepeachyogurt · 3 years

Text

i’m locking up everyone (who ever laid a finger on me)

Elle Greenaway Gen fic, brief romance with ofc

Word Count- 8,100

Summary- Elle’s been angry since she was young, a look into that anger until she finally gives in.

Tw- blood, knives, murder, brief mentions of rape and pedophilia (nothing graphic), minor substance mentioned, and language I guess

read here on ao3

You think it all started when Randall Garner decided you weren’t worth living. When he took a bullet from his shiny gun, broke into your home, your safe place, and shot you in the chest. As your blood spilled onto your floors you couldn’t help but blame the man who sent you home. Hotch may not have pulled the trigger but he loaded the gun which almost took your life. You were helpless, had to sit there, and watch it pour onto your floor like a pond being drained to make room for yet another building. Its life is sucked out of it like yours was. You closed your eyes because you did not want to see the blood. You’re no stranger to blood, you’re a woman after all, plus you work a job surrounded by murder and misery. There's nothing quite like watching corpse after corpse of other women laying on the floor, their eyes panicked and their blood staining the floor. It was never supposed to be you but now it was. This is how it ends, you suppose. You didn’t even save a life going down like you always thought you would. You were targeted. A victim. You were not an accident caught in the crosshairs. No, this was intentional and now you’re bleeding out your soul and you almost don’t want to be brought back to life.

When you were seven your mother baked pie after pie. Your father was dead, died heroically everyone said. Like that made it better. Who cares that you’ll never see him again, he’ll never teach you to ride a bike now like you guilt-tripped him for not doing before. Now he's dead and you’re surrounded by baked goods to fuel the appetite you don’t have. You feel hollow and you wish you didn’t. Sadness like your mother would be better, anger like his fellow officers would be better. You ask her why she’s baking pies, she doesn’t even like them. Fueron la cosa favorita de tu papá, cariño. Lo echo de menos cada dia. She acts like you don’t know your father’s favorite dessert, like you don’t miss him too. Ah, there’s the anger. Much better, you’ll revel in. That was not your question, you wanted to know why she felt like she could replace him with apple pie. You don’t tell her this, your father didn’t call you peanut to be vicious, he called you it because you were kind and soft. Were. Instead, you give your mother a soft smile like that fixes anything.

The days go on like they always do, a tv show where you cannot cancel your subscription. The anger subsides a bit, there will always be a gaping hole where your father’s kind eyes and gentle smile took root. For now, your heart is creating a shelter for it. It’s not perfect yet but you hope someday it will be.

You learn to laugh again, you speak Spanish with your mother. Sea bilingual mija, los estudios dicen que es buena para tu cerebro. ¿No quises saber la lengua materna de sus ancestros? You let her teach you the words of the women who can before you. It’s a beautiful thing to speak two languages. Perhaps connections make us who we are, now your ability to connect is twofold.

Your first day at the bau was almost as you imagined it. You did not imagine the genius barely old enough to drink, looking at crime scenes like he was made for it. Sculpted by the gods to examine the bodies of women like you and say why they were executed and by whom. Perhaps he was, Gideon did seem to think of himself as a god figure. You did not expect when returning to the office to see a woman who looked as though she stepped inside a rainbow and absorbed all its warmth. She looked like she would give you great hugs, she looked like home. That was a dangerous thought to be had in a place like this. They say it's a family. No family should be hoisted upon the foundation of murder. Blood should not be the glue that holds people together. Oh, and blood there was, almost every crime scene had its stench. The rust in the air reminds you of the junkyard by your house where you used to get high at with your friend that was never quite a friend. You would talk about the secrets of the universe and whether or not you felt as though you could exist in this world without paying a price. You argued that the world seems to take reservations, some were born with them already made, others bought them. The rest of you were forced to sell your soul to the devil to earn enough money to survive, to have a place in the world. She never quite saw your point. She will.

Even in your youth, you’ve never truly felt safe, perks of having a cop as a father means you’ve learned the cruelty of man far sooner than you should have, than you would have. He gave you rules to keep you safe.

Rule 1: you cannot walk alone or late at night. You yearn for the freedom of the boys on your block. The night and its darkness is so pure to you, the stars always in sight. Your mother tells you your father is in the sky and you look for him, to see if he twinkles at you. You do not want your mother to know this, it’s a secret shared by the two of you and you think that's sacred. Since you can’t walk alone at night you never get to look for him. Your father and freedom robbed from you by the men on the news and in your father’s case files.

Rule 2: never leave your drink unattended, you do not drink you are much too young but sometimes your eyes wander to your liquor cabinet and you wonder if there is a better state of being. If you can float above the longing for a different reality where you have a father and you are happy.

Rule 3: Do not dress provocatively, you are fourteen years old and you do not see why what you wear should impact your safety. You are not a gift wrapped up in a pretty package waiting for it to be ripped away to reveal something desirable. That does not stop the men from leering at you when you walk home from school, you still have your backpack on so you know it’s part of the appeal. It does not stop the boy in your science class from trying to grab your ass after class. You punch him in the nose and you get suspended. They do not listen to you. They do not care about the words of a girl, you are not here to have opinions on the world apparently you’re here to be a toy for those meant to have opinions. One day you’ll show them they’re wrong.

The list goes on and on, society loves to tell you that you will never be safe in this world. You wonder why no one is trying to make the world safe for you. Maybe that's your purpose. You were too late to be saved from the cruelty of this universe but perhaps there's another young girl who can be.

College, the supposed best years of your life. You decided to fulfill fourteen-year-old you’s wish to save the girls of the world so you major in criminology with a minor in psychology. What better way to stop them than to get inside their heads. You won’t let them into yours. They do not deserve the honor and the horror. You watch crime shows for fun, maybe for education. You see how these girls get taken and you know how to not make their mistakes. You also see what the killers did wrong. Part of you wonders if your future job, and the education for said job, are all an elaborate plan for you to win at the world. Life’s a game and you plan to be its victor. Learn their mistakes. Be better. You won’t fall for their tricks, you’re smarter than that.

Your studies do not stop you from enjoying your time here while you can. Once you see your first real corpse you know there's no going back. Any bit of being insouciant will be stolen from you just like the lives of the bodies you will hover over.

The party you are at is loud, not as loud as the inside your head, but enough to help you get out of it. You lock eyes with a woman who is quite possibly a work of art. She's in one of your classes, the buzz of alcohol in your head pleasantly blocking all memories of your studies. She smiles at you, shyly, and you wonder for the first time if perhaps angels are real. Her hair is blonde, just like an angel, it is her halo. Her eyes are blue like the water of the lakes you have stared at looking for an answer and perhaps you can find it in her eyes. She makes her way to you, she too has been loosened by alcohol for she stands far too close to be mistaken with platonic intentions towards you. Lily, your brain provides, is even more beautiful up close. She has freckles that dance along the bridge of her nose and you briefly wish to kiss them. Kiss her. The two of you dance, swaying to the beat of whatever trashy music is playing. You ask her if she’d like to go outside and take a walk with you. She says yes.

She is curious why but she follows you outside. You hesitantly grasp her hand as you pull her along a secret path you found on your first week here. She looks at the constellations above you and names the one you are staring at. As she looks at the sky you decide she is more beautiful than they are and you gaze at her while she gazes at the stars. She catches you eventually and you place a hand on her cheek. Her eyes shimmer in the moonlight and you ask if you can kiss her. She accepts and you accept that it might be your new favorite hobby. Perhaps you could spend hours kissing her. You do.

Lily and you have your perfect YA book experience. She takes you to coffee shops and you look at the stars together. You are not breaking your father’s rules for now you are not alone, it will end though, you know it. You are not the type of girl who gets her happy ending. You tell her a bad pun about the stars and she laughs and tells you the names of constellations she knows, god her laugh. You wish you could bottle it up and save it for a rainy day. Granted, you spend your rainy days with her cuddling up with bad movies and good hot chocolate. You gift her a pair of constellation earrings, you tell her, think of me when you look at the night sky, you want to say, please don’t forget me when you leave me, she gives you a blanket which is almost as soft as her. You are so in love with her your words can not describe it, so you use other people's words. You write poetry on the soft skin of her forearm. She doodles little flowers on your wrist. Perhaps they are like matching tattoos, unlike matching tattoos, these do not last forever. Just like the two of you. The problem comes not with her, she was never anything but perfect to you. The problem of course is you.

As you drown in your textbooks filled with bodies and bodies and bodies you can feel your soul filling with misery and a passion for justice. Slowly it consumes you and there is little time for the joy that is brought to you by her. She feels you slipping away like a boat that is not properly tied. It’s hard to be in a relationship where the other person is half focused on you while the other half of her mind wanders in dark alleyways with killers, wanting, no needing, to know why they commit their sins. Study dates turn into texts turn into nothing. There is no formal break up. You do not deserve the courtesy of a clean break and she is too sweet to break your heart. The two of you drift apart like you always knew you would, and soon you only see her in your one shared class. Her mind is not consumed with darkness, Lily does not wish to catch the monsters of the world, she wishes to paint them. Sometimes you look into her studio while she paints and you watch her hands and marvel. You never know if she’s aware you do this, but if she is, she spares you the shame of being so pathetic you need to watch someone you love paint from the shadows because you were too much of a coward to commit yourself to her and you allowed yourself to slip away into the darkness of your mind.

You think everyone got it wrong, it is so easy to be fueled by hate and spite. Look around you, the world is a cruel place. To not be affected by it is a power that you almost envy. To see the bad in the world and choose to be good is something you never had and will never have. It is not in your cards so you decided to make the best of it. You miss her kind eyes and gentle laugh every day of your life, but you know it is better to live in the darkness than let your black ink slowly turn her away from the light where she belongs.

The day you turn 18 you buy a handgun. You used to carry it around your ankle, liking the weight of your footsteps hitting the ground. One day the ground will break under your heel. Now, as an agent, your handgun sits on your left hip. You want people to fear you, you want them to know you are dangerous. And yet, you still don’t feel safe in this cruel world. So you buy a knife. It glimmers in the light, its handle is intricately carved out of wood. You have a holder for it on your thigh for the days where you wear dresses, on days where you aim to please. On days you don’t give a fuck about anyone else, when you wear what you wish, your knife sits either in your pocket, if you are blessed with pockets, your shoe, if it fits, or the holder you bought which holds your knife nice and close to you, flesh with your back. You like the power you hold with your weapons. You learn your craft better than most. You learn accuracy, precision, strength. Throwing knives feels even better than it looks, you know you hold in both your hands the ability to take life from someone who is not worthy of it.

When you were in fifth grade, boys decided to see how fun it would be to push your buttons. You were smarter than them, faster than them. They didn't like losing to a girl, why is being a girl shameful, you asked your teacher this once. She did not answer you, you suspect she does not know. If you were the first to answer a question, and you often were, they would tease you. Try hard, was their favorite. Well maybe, if they wanted to beat you they should try harder. You told a boy this once and he grabbed your arm and called you a bitch. Your mom did not let you start taking martial arts classes.

If they did not like your words, perhaps they would respond to physical intimidation. You preferred kicking shins, it did not result in blood and there was lots of sweet, sweet, plausible deniability. Not that they ever tried to get you in trouble, the biggest thing in the world is a man’s ego. You became meaner, colder. Your mother asks you where her sweet girl went, she does not want to hear that perhaps she never existed. No one can hurt you if you never let them in. If you carry yourself with a scowl and your words bite those who try you and you hurt those who try to hurt you. They can't, you won't let them. You are not weak like they are, you are strong. It never quite works though, the boys in your class see a challenge. Something they can beat. They challenge you loudly, in front of everything and everyone. You can no longer afford to make a mistake. If you do, they yell we beat Elle, haha we did it. The teachers watch as they attack you. Most do not care. The kind girls in your class do not experience this and maybe, just maybe, you should go back to being like them. It makes you feel vulnerable though, to be kind without question. No, they have to earn your kindness, earn your respect. Giving it out for free did not win you anything. You take the name bitch and wear it like a badge of honor.

Eventually, you fall for the propaganda of your team being a family. As an only child, you’ve sometimes wished for siblings, maybe you’ve found them. Reid is like your little brother, annoying at times, but sweet and endearing. You would cause destruction if anything happened to him. He deserves it. JJ is hard to describe as a part of your family, she reminds you of Lily with her bright eyes and kind smile. She is not Lily but you wonder if she would ever consider being with you. She is a part of this world of darkness, you might not soil her. Oh, but you would, it is selfish of you to think that you could be loved and not ruin them. Your touch is like a virus, it kills if given the chance. You will not give it another shot.

Garcia is your sister, she is concerned about you when you risk your life in the field time, and time again, you can’t help but think she chose the wrong job. You love her, almost, and not quite. She is always sweet to you, her personality is a breath of fresh air in this world. It needs more of her and that's why you want to be close to her but can’t. Morgan is your older brother, he roughhouses with you, he won't admit it but you are just as good as him. You knew you would be, the world underestimates you, and as annoying as it is, it is your advantage. He understands you, you think he is not the only one who is afraid of loving others, of course, neither of you says anything but you never needed to. Gideon and Hotch would be your fathers but they are nothing like your father. Your father was kind and he taught you things, he gave you praise. Hotch and Gideon are cold to you, Gideon more than Hotch. They are both fathers but you feel sorrow for their children. It must hurt to know they will always be second in importance to killers, that they are not enough to be home every night for. You resent them both for hurting their children.

Fresh out of college means it’s time for a career. You decide to join the FBI, the police were not enough to save your father, they are almost useless, you need to be powerful. You join the highest law enforcement in the country and you excel. Sex crimes is not a fun job, but you take pleasure in taking down men who decided to pray on women and children. They do not deserve the nice jail cells they get, but you hope they do get what's coming for them in prison. Of course, that banks on them getting jail time at all. Rape is the only crime where people can suggest that the victim enjoyed it. It is the only subjective crime. There is no enjoyable murder or robbery, victims do not ask to have their identity stolen. It fills you with more rage than you knew was available. You are close with your colleges but you are not their friends. They think you are though. You drink with them, you play games with them, you joke with them. You do not care very much about them. It is a weakness to rely on others for joy, it is foolish to attach yourself to people who are here to hold up a broken system. You also hold up that system, for now at least. You promise yourself you will never be close to your teammates. Justice has no room for friendship.

Gideon keeps a book of people who he has saved. You keep a book of vile men who’ve charmed the justice system, not you though, you are justice but you are not a system. Perhaps you are vengeance.

Your mother taught you to cook when you were little, Cuban food to keep your father alive in memory. As if he would smell the spices and resurrect from the dead. You continue to cook though, it's a hobby and a good one. It provides for you. Unlike Reid, Chinese take out is not your main food source.

Never cut peppers while thinking about murder. A rule no one taught you but they most definitely should have. Your mind is full of your latest case. A pedophile who would cut the hair off his victims to make a doll of them. He wanted to keep them forever, forever young too. You cut your finger instead of the pepper. The pain does not bother you, you are far too used to it for it to impact you, in fact, if anything it makes you feel alive. There is blood dripping down your finger and you are memorized. It’s different from the blood when you were shot, this is carefully controlled. The contrast of it against your skin is divine. You’ve always thought blood was messy, the villain that comes once a month, and an inconvenience when you cut yourself shaving. You never thought it was elegant until now. You don’t want to continue to cut yourself, that was never your brand. But now, maybe after being inside the minds of men who hurt others, you wish to see their blood run down your hands.

You clean and wash your finger, you’ll catalog and examine those thoughts for another day. You are not evil, not like that. At least you hope not. Although, what would it matter if there was one more person committing sins out there. God has lost control already, he will not control you, society will not control you. You are in control, more than you’ve ever been.

At night you lie awake and think about what you could do to cement your newfound control. You think about the men who’ve gotten away with their heinous acts. You think that perhaps, it would feel good to kill them. For them to suffer like they made others suffer. Prison was not for them, the judges made sure of that. They say liberty and justice for all. These men have liberty but they have not found justice. You will help them find it.

Not only did Randall Garner break into your house and shoot you. He had the audacity to stick his filthy finger in your bullet wound and write on the walls of your home. He wrote ‘rules’, how ironic. You’ve lived by the rules your father gave you even before he was buried in the earth. Now, you’re being punished for not following the rules of a killer. Your father’s rules were not enough to save you. It’s time you break them and make your own.

Rule 1: Do not take shit from anyone, especially a man. If they are cruel to you, be crueler to them. This, however, does not mean to be rude to everyone. Simply, just like in middle school, people must earn your respect. Children, however, are exempt. They have not been tainted by the universe yet, they are unmarked and kind. If they are not kind, something made them that way and they deserve your kindness more than anyone else.

Rule 2: Be smarter and be faster than everyone else. They will not catch you, they may know it's you, it's inevitable, but you will be as free as the men you will hunt.

Rule 3: Friends are for fools, you do not need them. They will slow you down and they will try to convince you that you are wrong, that you need fixing. You can almost hear Reid telling you that you need help, that you're sick. You are not a coward, and you do not need fixing.

High school was not the best time of your life, but it certainly wasn't the worst. You had a tight circle of friends, you didn't quite share with each other, at least your secrets. But you cared enough about each other that it was not important that they didn't know about you. Your friends didn't need to know about your pining over the girl in your math class, that helped you out if you ever needed it and was as sharp as her jawline. You weren’t lonely and that was enough for you, you were, dare you say it, happy. You cooked for your friends on occasions, typically birthdays. You got invited to parties and learned to love the loud music and the smell of beer. You were top of your class, much to some people’s chagrin, but they couldn’t shake you. You joined debate so you could argue for a sport, and boy were you good at it. Teachers said they never met anyone as passionate as you, you didn't tell them that you carry resentment for the shallow topics they choose. There's airing on the side of apolitical and there's apathy towards others. They didn’t like you discussing your opinions, that did not stop you one bit.

Your friend that was always a bit more plays with your hair and you think that maybe the world is kind and gentle, maybe she's right. You feel safe in her lap, her hand carding through your hair before she starts to braid it. It’s intimate in a way that makes you want to sob, no one has touched you like they aren’t afraid of you or aren’t afraid of you breaking in a very long time. You look too much like your father for your mother, and you feel disconnected from her. The two of you do not embrace.

The ceiling above you is popcorn and if you stare long enough you imagine it’s the stars, a beautiful constellation. The world always feels so small with just the two of you. You don’t like being reminded that it is you that is small, not the world. The world is large and it is terrifying, a disheartening juxtaposition.

After someone decides that maybe you shouldn't die you are rushed to the hospital. Granted, you're the one the dialed 911, you always did have to save yourself. You don’t remember much, you are so tired and you’ve lost so much blood. The medics say that they are losing you, perhaps you were never here to begin with. They administer cpr to you and you feel like your body is being crushed. It feels like they are going to kill you as they try to save your life. The next time you open your eyes you're back on the jet. You feel like you're dreaming, and then you know it can’t be real because your father is here. Your father is dead so you think that you must be too. What a cruel trick it must be to have your afterlife still consumed by your job, you are on a jet but you can not fly it. Dad calls you peanut and you almost lose it right there. The shelter you built for your heart after his loss feels like it's been shattered. You feel raw, exposed. Somehow, in his presence, you do not mind it quite so much. You’ve missed him more than you remember and you almost hope that this is real. What this is, you aren’t sure. He tells you it’s a midway point, that you have to choose whether or not you want to live. And that you must make it now.

On the one hand, living always has been a chore. It’s peaceful here with your father. The two of you can talk about everything you’ve always wanted to talk about. You’d like to hear his thoughts on philosophy. He always was your hero.

On the other hand, who will water your plants? You haven’t gotten to say goodbye to the bau and you haven't gotten your justice yet.

You choose to live.

When you moved into your apartment, the first thing you did after unboxing everything was to buy a plant. Your apartment looked dead, just because you were here to make your living in death and you’ve never quite felt alive, did not mean your apartment was doomed to suffer the same fate. You started small with a succulent, they were supposed to be easy to take care of. Slowly your collection grew, you were growing flowers and herbs as well. Your house has never felt more like a home than when all your plants are blooming. It gives you a purpose, something to come home for. You’d also like a cat but you know you are never home enough to sustain all its needs. Hotch has a son at home that he never sees but you suppose that he’s not as important to him as your cat would be to you. You try your hand at painting on your wall, like maybe you learned something from all the time you stared at Lily. You wonder if she still thinks of you, if she looks at the stars and remembers you. You still have the blanket she gave you. It adorns your couch and you think it might be your most prized possession.

You consider getting a tattoo of poetry or a quote in her honor, you feel somedays like you might be obsessed with her but you also might just be in love with her still. You’ve found that there's a fine line between love, obsession, and insanity. Where you fall on the scale you aren’t sure yet and you know you don’t want to find out. You think the two of you were like the quote; ‘A sky full of stars and he was staring at her’. That first night where you walked together was exactly that. She was more beautiful than the night sky and you love the night sky. Maybe someday you’ll get that tattoo but for now, you have crimes to solve and your heart to bury.

You’ve always known that other Latina women were of the more likely to be victims of sexual crimes. That didn't stop you from being shocked and having your heart break every time you saw another woman like you report a heinous crime done to her. You’ve never appreciated your mother deciding you needed to speak Spanish more than when you’ve been able to communicate in these women’s native language. Something about language makes people feel safe, at home. You think perhaps, communication is the world's greatest tool.

You cut your hair like you think it will solve your problems. Like you don’t feel like murder is an option now, like you don’t resent your team for getting you shot. Like you don’t feel like every man is out to get you. At least more than they were before. For a team of gifted profilers, no one seems to notice that you are breaking. Or maybe they do and they simply don’t care that you lie awake at night wondering if your choice to live was a good one or how your blood looked on your knife that day where you accidentally cut yourself. Or maybe, you’ve gotten so used to hiding yourself that they simply think you are still the same person you were before a bullet pierced your skin. Before a man targeted you for not following his rules. Because he needed to be in control. Now he’s dead and it's your turn to be in control. They won’t notice it at first. But you will start controlling them ever so slightly. And then, then you will strike. First, you will make them think you have PTSD, after all, you’d be a prime victim to it. They will be lenient because they think you dream about your attack and not how nice it would feel to slice through the skin of a monster. They don’t know you, you've made sure of that. You’ll open up to Reid if by open you mean fake everything. You’ll tell him about the dreams you aren’t having, and that you definitely see his face everywhere you go. How your walls still feel like they are covered in your blood. Of course, that would be suspicious so first, you will be short. You will be passive-aggressive, more than normal, you will make him see that you are wrong. He will be compelled to help you, ask you what is wrong. He’s too kind to you and this world, he hasn’t quite been burned yet. He will. Maybe by you, maybe by some other man who decides he broke a rule. Someone might think he is too, a sinner. He falls right into your trap. You decide to really play up the trauma and you raid your minibar. Fourteen-year-old you was right about alcohol, it does let you float above everything, you aren’t happy but you are above everything. He knocks on your door and you pretend to be drunker than you are. After lying straight to his face while you put on yet another facade, you kick him out. Tell him that he can’t fix you. Oops, maybe that was more of the truth than you wanted him to know.

There's a slight flaw in this new plan of yours. You were always a bit too sensitive about rapists, perhaps it's a combination of your youth, your womanhood, and the fact that you have sympathy. And rage. You are told by Hotch, who if he wasn't your boss you are sure you’d have told him to go to hell by now, to set yourself up to be an almost rape victim. They tell you that of course, it won’t happen. They’ll be watching you. Problem is you don’t trust him with your life. Shouldn’t trust him with your life, he is of course the one who loaded the gun for the man you shot you. You agree, because you have to, you can’t say no without fielding questions and avoiding pointed stares. It’s too much for you though, it's like you’re in your own personal horror movie. You turn up the music and you block out their calls. You do not want to hear from them right now. It all goes south when you accost the man who wants to take you for himself. You are reprimanded for your actions but you don’t give a single fuck.

It's time for the next step in your plan. Justice. Or as some would call it, murder.

You go back to your hotel with the rest of the team so they don't suspect anything of you. They never do. Later, you’ll go for a walk to clear your head, you’ll make sure someone hears you leave. You’ll track down this son of a bitch and you’ll make sure that he doesn’t live to see another day where he can create evil. You’ve always thought the law did its job, but Hotch says that he’ll have to be let go because there isn’t enough evidence now that you’ve ruined everything. He doesn't say that in as many words. His stoic nature allows him to be ruthless without saying anything, which works for him because no one can ever call him out on subtext. If the law doesn’t care about women, you will. You corner William Lee and you point your gun at him. He smirks at you and you’re glad he does, it makes your job that much more satisfying. You fire at him. You’ve been shot at now, you know how it feels, you watch as the life in him slowly leaves his eyes and it’s more addicting than anything you’ve ever felt. His blood pours onto the pavement much like yours dripped onto your floor. You think it would be more enjoyable if you had his blood on your hands. If you could feel the life leaving him. Next time.

The team finds you, gunshots are very loud, one more point to a knife. You tell them it was self-defense. They mistake the slight shake in your voice as fear, not adrenaline, the good kind. That's on them though. Elle Greenaway does not get scared, she creates fear. You can tell that they don’t 100% believe you, and they shouldn't, but they accept it anyway. You know someone is going to corner you after this, ask you what really happened. You decide that you’ve had enough of chasing killers. Now you’ll be the killer, being chased by them while you’re hunting rapists.

Back when you were new at the BAU and JJ’s smile still gave you butterflies you wondered how they all fell so easily together. Reid and Gideon had chess, Morgan and Garcia had, whatever they had, JJ, Reid, and Morgan were like siblings, Hotch and Gideon the heads of the family. And then there was you. You didn't quite fit in, not yet at least. You wondered how they could make bonds with people that could very well be shot and killed in the coming case. How they could make themselves vulnerable to that kind of destruction. It was better to be cold, it was better to not let them in.

Too bad you always were bad at keeping your promises. You let them worm their way into your heart. It makes saying goodbye oh so much harder. Somehow, you don’t quite regret it though, it made your time amongst the blood enjoyable. Well, as enjoyable as it can be here. You still stand by your opinion that no family built on murder can be steady. It will crumble, and you will not be here to see it fall.

You open your booklet filled with men who make you seethe. When you were very young you assumed that monsters had a certain look to them. That they had red eyes filled with darkness, claws, to scratch you with. You thought if you saw a monster on the street you’d know it. Sadly, the monsters of the world live not in the shadows, but in the light. They are your baseball coaches and math teachers. Every time you arrested one, you heard echoes of the same flawed speech. I never suspected anything, he seemed so normal. There is no normal, it’s an illusion we hold to make ourselves feel safe in our own skin. We shouldn’t feel safe in our skin, that's what kills you.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a rapist by his toes, if he hollers, let him scream, so much fun for you and me.

Your hand picks Caden Mechein. Kansas, victim count three, blondes. You take the train, pay in cash, your hair is dyed red and you cut it to a pixie cut so you won't be quite as recognizable to Garcia. Your baseball hat and sunglasses should help with that. You’ve changed your fashion, it fulfills a fantasy you didn't know you had. You dress like a punk now, good thing your mother can’t see you she’d have a fit. You sit alone as the train fills up, no one asks to sit with you, like they know you’re dangerous. Good. You want them to be afraid of you. You stare out the window the entire trip, images flash in your head of what you're about to do. You watch the fields and fields of corn come into visions and you know it's almost time.

After a day and a half of planning and anticipation, you’ve arrived in Topeka. It’s a nice place, different from the east coast. People are friendlier here, you’ve heard about the midwestern nice but it’s different to actually experience a stranger smiling at you while you walk down the street. The darkness conceals you like you conceal the knife on your hip, hidden behind your leather jacket. You have latex gloves in your pocket because as much as you would love to feel his blood on your hands you aren’t going to risk leave fingerprints

You reach Caden’s house, his lights are off, he’s asleep. Perfect. You will kill him in his own home just like you were almost killed in yours. You jimmy the lock, breaking a window is too loud, too suspicious you do not want him to know you’re coming. Suspense is key for murder, it builds up in their heart and makes it just that much better when they see the knife in your hand. Or you’d think, it is your first kill after all.

You make your way into this sicko’s home, you find his bedroom. And you knock on the door. He curses like Jesus Christ will save him from you, he is no match for you. He is out of bed now, he’s asking you what you want. Your blood, you answer him. He pales, just like he’ll look when his blood is drained from his neck. You corner him in the corner of his room and you bring your knife out from your holster. It glimmers in the moonlight, because he feels so safe and secure in his room that he sleeps with a curtain open. Well, felt safe, you doubt he’s very secure with you spinning the knife in front of his face. Why are you doing this, he pleads with you like that will make you walk out of the room right here and abandon your plans. Men always were stupid and arrogant. You tell him that he knows exactly why, that this is his comeuppance for what he did to those girls.

Enough is enough, time to get what you want. You grasp the knife, marveling in its weight, in one bold stroke you slice his neck open. The blood gushes, it does not touch you, you made sure to step back before the flooding began. You watch mesmerized as the floor begins to stain crimson. Caden gasps for air, his feet give out and he falls on the floor. His head hits the wall with a satisfying thud. Eventually, the bleeding stops and you walk away, leaving his corpse to cool before it burns in hell.

Once upon a time, you would have added a signature, perhaps a Birdsfoot Trefoil, signifying revenge. That would be too clean and sweet for the police so you don’t give them it. You wonder how long it will take them to realize that this is the work of a vengeful woman. You hope it doesn't take long, you want the world to see your wrath.

Just like you suspected when you returned home from William Lee’s case, Hotch pulls you into his office. You can see the anger in his eyes and you know then and there that he could kill you with his bare hands and not think twice about it. He is angry because he knows what you’ve done, he’s a firm believer that the law does no wrong and he is a coward.

“Elle, I need to know if you murdered William Lee.”

You scoff at him, “of course not, who do you think I am?” He does not reply and you think that says more than if he had written a thesis about you.

“No Hotch, I didn’t commit cold-blooded murder while on the clock for the FBI”,

You both know that that isn’t true, only one of you is sure.

“Why do you care about him anyway? Relate to him, maybe?”

“Do not throw those kinds of accusations at me, Agent Greenaway.”

He throws your official title as a way of saying that you are no longer his friend, lucky for you never once thought he was, you are not in the habit of befriending men who would see your death as inevitable. You know that this is the end of your stay at the federal bureau of investigation. Might as well go out with a bang.

“Right, of course, my bad. Forgot you think you’re better than everyone else. I have news for you Hotch, you’re a shit father and a terrible husband. You never see your family, you’re so caught up in the high of catching killers your son barely knows who you are. I don’t think you’re any better than the men we catch”

“Elle, I understand you are still recovering from what happened to you but you can not speak to me this way. You’re suspended two weeks without pay, and are pending investigation”

He uses your name now because he knows you are right, he wants you to see him as the good man he sees in the mirror. You want his mirror to crack under what it sees.

“What happened to me? Oh yeah, when you let me get shot because you don’t give a fuck about me or any of the women on this team. I'm not suspended, I’m never coming back to this hell hole. I quit,”

You leave your badge and your gun on his desk. You won’t be needing them.

You ride the high of your first kill like you the first time you got high in highschool. You feel powerful, and like you’ve done the right thing. Out of curiosity, you check the news on your train to Nevada, they don’t mention Caden’s sins. They make him a saint that died as a tragedy not out of righteousness. You’ll make sure they know the sins of your next body.

After you slice this one's throat, you’ll dip your finger in his throat much like Randall Garner did to you, and write ‘scum’ on his forehead. He does not deserve honor in his death, he deserves shame.

Your body count racks up and you’ve never felt both powerful and powerless. You are making a difference, these men who think themselves above the law are finding that they are not above your law. The look on their faces when they understand what’s coming for them is a thing of elegance. When they see all 5’8 of you and realize that they will lose to a woman. Their crimes have not been forgotten, will never be forgiven, and now they will die because of them. They hurt women so now they will be hurt by a woman.

Every day you read the news about another man who you must add to your list and you are disheartened. You are sick of this tango for one. You long for the days of your past when you were happy. Those days are over though, this is your job now and you do it well. You do this for all the past versions of you, some more innocent, some more jaded, all you, all beautiful. For every girl who has ever felt victimized by a man who considers himself mighty. For every girl who still lives in bliss about what the men around her are capable of. You will try to make sure she never learns. You do this for every beautiful, broken girl and so that there needs not to be more of you, this club needs no more members. It’s time they make a new club for girls who are happy, you wish you could have been one of them.

Spanish translation (I am not a native spanish speaker forgive me for any errors):

'Fueron la cosa favorita de tu papá, cariño. Lo echo de menos cada dia.' It was your father's favorite thing sweetheart. I miss him every day

'Sea bilingual mija, los estudios dicen que es buena para tu cerebro. ¿No quises saber la lengua materna de sus ancestros?' You should be bilingual my daughter, the studies say it's good for your brain. Don't you want to know the mother tongue of your ancestors?

Tag List!: @royalpenelope @scandinavian-punk @theatreandfeminism @babey-jj @hellskitchensmurdock

#elle greenaway #Elle greenaway fic #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfiction #lucy's fics!#mine!#criminal minds #let me know what you think! 🥺

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banshee1013 · 4 years

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Suptober Day 12 - Rewind

So, as soon as I saw today’s promp, I couldn’t get “Satisfied” from Hamilton out of my head, and I knew I had to do something with it.

SO, here’s something. It’s pretty crazy!

Overall Title: The Road Less Traveled

Overall Rating: Mature (may change to Explicit, we’ll see how it goes)

Tags: Castiel/Dean, mention of Sam/Eileen, Post-Season 15, ExAngel!Cas, MostlyRetiredHunter!Dean, Road Trip

(Note: all ficlets are unbeta’d. At the end of the month, I’ll wrap up whatever I manage to get written, clean it up, get it beta’d, and post to AO3. So please pardon any mistakes!)

========================================================

CHAPTER SEVEN - REWIND

Words: 1442

Cas quietly sings along to the song playing through Baby’s speakers, fingers tapping on the wheel - a song from that musical… what was it… oh, yeah, ‘Hamilton’. Dean had never seen it (hell, hardly anyone he knew had seen it, the thing was impossible to get tickets to), but Sam had picked up the soundtrack somewhere and had raved about it. Cas must have asked Sam to copy it to cassette at some point, for it had been among the cassettes Dean had recovered from Cas’ truck at the lake house and added it to the collection in Baby’s glove box.

After stopping for the night in a quaint little seaside town in Oregon (“It’s called WINCHESTER BAY, Cas, we gotta stop!) and breakfast at a nearby diner, Dean had tossed the keys to Cas. It took some convincing that yes, Dean was serious about Cas driving his baby - but it had been worth it just to see Cas’ rare (but increasingly less rare) bright, gummy smile.

Cas had seen the Hamilton tape when Dean pulled the tape box out to choose a one to listen to, squawking in excitement (“That one, Dean! Play that one!”). Dean had protested - no way was his baby (or him, for that matter) gonna be subjected to a Broadway musical - but Cas had used his own rule against him.

“I’m the driver, Dean. I get to pick the music.”

“Yeah, but you picked the last one we listened to.”

“That may be the case, but it is not my fault that you chose to abdicate to me your right as the driver to pick the music. I do not plan on relinquishing my right as you did.” He waved a finger at the Hamilton cassette. “Put it on, if you please. Don’t make me tell you to shut your cakehole.”

Dean had grumbled and slid the tape home.

Now, three or so songs in, he begrudgingly admits that it’s pretty catchy. Currently, the song playing is about finding a right-hand man or something.

The big breakfast, the purr of Baby’s engine, the hum of the wheels on pavement, all conspire to make Dean sleepy. Leaning against the passenger door, he soon finds himself drifting off.

The strains of a song seeps into his ears…

Rewind… Rewind… Rewind Helpless... Skies... skies… Drownin' in 'em... Drowning

Rewind...

Dean is in a familiar warehouse. Sigils painted on the concrete floors and all along the corrugated steel walls. He’s sitting on a table, waiting for something. Bobby sits across from him on another table, strewn with weapons and the remnants of spell-casting.

Waitaminute, Dean thinks. I know this warehouse… I remember this night….

I remember that night I just might (rewind!) I remember that night I just might (rewind) I remember that night, I remember that… I remember that night, I just might

Regret that night for the rest of my days

The panels of the warehouse’s roof began to shake and flap, as if caught in a hurricane-force wind. Dean and Bobby jump from the tables in alarm, snatching the rifles from the tables and aiming them at the now vigorously rattling sigil-covered wooden doors of the warehouse.

I remember those soldier boys Tripping over themselves to win our praise

Dean looks down at the table next to him, full of every weapon they owned. Wondering which one would be able to kill the thing coming for him, the thing that had blinded Pamela.

Someone... something... called ‘Castiel’.

I remember that dreamlike candlelight Like a dream that you can't quite place

The warehouse lights burst in a shower of sparks, lightning the room in an eerie blue-white glow. The beam over the doors cracks and snaps as the doors slowly open, and a shadowed figure strides in.

Dean and Bobby pump him full of shotgun lead, but he is unfazed and continues to approach, the sparks flying through the air highlighting the approaching figure - a dark haired man in a suit and tie, trench coat flapping like wings behind him.

But Alexander, I'll never forget the first time I saw your face I have never been the same

Dean is frozen in place, unable to move or speak as the man approaches. Finally he manages to tear himself away, grabbing Ruby’s knife from the table.

Intelligent eyes in a hunger-pang frame And when you said "Hi, " I forgot my dang name

Dean turns back, knife held behind his back, and is stunned by the man before him. Wide, ice-blue eyes seemed to glow from within, boring into his as if seeing directly into his soul. Hair wild, full lips pressed into a shy smile, as if Dean and Bobby hadn’t just opened fire on him.

He was beautiful.

“Who are you?” Dean manages to croak.

The man speaks, his voice rumbling and dark like whiskey over gravel, eyes wide, expression earnest. “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition.”

Set my heart aflame, ev'ry part aflame This is not a game

Even after Dean stabs him and Bobby tries to take him out with a crowbar, the man’s expression merely changes from earnest to slightly annoyed. Power pours off him as he presses fingers to Bobby’s head, watching calmly as Bobby slowly sinks to the ground.

He turns back around. “We need to talk, Dean. Alone.”

Those beautiful blue eyes meet his, so open and earnest, and he is suddenly…

Helpless And her eyes are just Helpless And I realize

Three fundamental truths at the exact same time

Number one: he’s a man who’s been raised to believe having feelings is a weakness.

Images flash through his mind of all the times he’s been happy with Cas, starting to allow himself to acknowledge there might be something more than friendship there - and him shutting them all down, not wanting to be weak.

Number two: he’s a man who believes he doesn’t deserve good things, or to be loved.

More images, this time of all the horrible things he’s done - going to Hell, becoming a demon, freeing The Darkness; all the people he’s killed. He’s not worthy of love, especially Cas’.

Number three: He might be all these things, but he would do anything to make Cas happy - and that means accepting the fact that maybe he is worthy, if Cas thinks him so.

All the times Cas has been there for him; always returning, always accepting. Even when he’d had enough of Dean being stupid and bullheaded and finally walked away from him, all it took was a heartfelt prayer and Cas was back at his side. Just wanting him to be happy, and to accept that he was deserving of happiness.

To the groom! To the groom, to the groom, to the groom To the bride! To the bride To the bride (to the bride)

Dean is suddenly in a beautiful garden, green grass under his feet, dressed in white.

He looks up - he’s surrounded by all his loved ones, living and dead. And just past them all, Cas is waiting, practically glowing in a matching white suit.

Wait, what? Is this a hint, his subconscious trying to tell him something…

May you always Always Be satisfied

---------------------

Should I? Should I ask Cas to marry me?

I’ve known it, this whole time… it’s been there, even from all the way back in that warehouse...

“Why would an angel rescue me from Hell?”

Cas’ expression had grown soft, concerned as he stepped closer. “Good things do happen, Dean.”

Dean swallowed, his heart stuttering at the angel’s proximity.

“Not in my experience.”

The angel’s head tilted in confusion, the blue eyes filled with sadness and disbelief.

“What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?”

Cas told me I deserve good things, even after all I did to him - having to go to Hell to rescue me just to have me shoot him, stab him - and still thinking I deserved to be saved.

I deserve Cas. Now I believe it. Finally.

-----------------------

Dean wakes with a start, and Cas glances over at him, smiling and reaching an arm to steady him.

“Welcome back. Did you rest well?” His voice, soft and so full of love, causes Dean’s voice to stick in his throat.

Swallowing, he hears his voice croak out, “Cas, marry me.”

Realizing what he just said, Dean groans and closes his eyes, mortified. That was NOT how he planned on asking.

But Cas is completely unfazed by Dean’s outburst, his hand sliding from Dean’s shoulder to his hand, picking it up and raising it to his lips.

“Of course I will, Dean. I thought you’d never ask.”

#suptober20 #Day12 #art #fic #destiel

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captain-danwilds · 3 years

Text

I’ve been waiting for so long (to feel like I’m home)

A RBB 2021 Fic AO3 Accompanying Art by @mareofthesky

Summary: Palmetto Public Hospital was just supposed to be another meaningless stop in Neil Josten's life. He doesn't have a reason to keep running to a new hospital every few months, but that doesn't mean he's learned how to stay. And there's something about the rest of the staff on the burn ward that makes him want to try, especially the physical therapist.

This fic was written for the 2021 AFTG Reverse Big Bang. Thank you @gluupor for organizing! I had the joy of being paired with @mareofthesky. She’s absolutely incredible, both as an artist and as a human being. I seriously couldn’t ask for someone better.

This work takes place in a hospital in pre-COVID times. I am not a nurse, doctor or physical therapist, let alone a burn survivor. I do not know everything they go through. I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible, but recognize that I’m going to be wrong about some things. There’s only so far research can take you.

While I don’t think this work is more graphic than canon, it does deal with some distressing stuff, namely: burns, blood, hospitals, child abuse, violence, panic attacks, hurt/comfort, torture, mutilation of corpses (referenced) and Baltimore references.

Nathaniel Wesninski was thirteen when his mother almost died.

In another universe, this would have been the thing that killed her. She would have gotten her hands-on fake passports and they would have traveled across Europe until he was fourteen and Stefan got shot in Germany. But they would have still ended up in Seattle, her blood spilling on the leather seat as her son drove down the coastline.

In this world, their plans to head to Europe fell through quickly. There hadn't been a couple million dollars to pave the way, just two desperate souls fleeing in the night because Nathaniel couldn't live up to the standards his father set for him.

Nathan Wesninski was the head of his own empire, eager for his son to take over. There was no Yakuza demanding a show of loyalty. If Nathaniel had shown promise, he would have been able to take over the family operation.

The problem was, in both worlds, Nathaniel hadn't shown promise. It took years for him to learn how to watch his father butcher a man without crying. He could never master Lola's style of knife play, refusing to draw out the pain any more than strictly necessary. As he got older, his eyes would go stony, his hands moving automatically. But he was moving through water. He barricaded himself into his own head so that he didn't register the stickiness of the blood on his hands until he'd left the basement. The sound of screams became so ubiquitous, he could tune it out. There was no joy, certainly no drive to continue the Butcher's legacy.

He had merely nodded when his father had announced he expected Nathaniel to take care of the traitor in his ranks. He kept his feet trained on the floor, on the puddles of blood slowly inching toward the central drain.

But Mary saw the gleam on her husband's face, the unspoken or else. She also happened to know the traitor in question. One of the servants who liked to sneak Nathaniel snacks while he worked on his homework. There was no way that Nathaniel could force himself to do it. He'd be left with new scars if he was lucky. Knowing her husband and his current frustration over territory losses, Nathaniel wasn’t going to be lucky.

So she'd grabbed what she could, contacted the few contacts she had with her family that could do good work for cheap and escaped into the night.

When they met Nathan and his ilk in Seattle, they had only been on the run for three years. Linda and Alex, their 8th set of names, had settled into the type of neighborhood where no one noticed another kid with desperation in their eyes, where no one had the energy to poke into anyone else's business during the break between second and third jobs. Alex was fine, good at following orders, a natural at stitches. He could blend in just fine, answer questions the right way, but he certainly wasn't ready to start out on his own.

For every time they successfully changed identities, he complained about not joining the track team or jostled against the restrictions of coming home directly after school without hanging on the monkey bars or meeting friends. For all their time on the run, for all the times she'd tried to beat it out of him, Alex was still a child.

And even if he had been ready to stake out on his own. A child, especially one as small as Alex, would always draw attention when traveling alone.

Despite that, he had been able to drive the beaten down car, the phone book stacked beneath him giving him just enough extra height to see the road. His maneuvering was perfect as he weaved through traffic. They hadn't spent weeks training as Caroline and Sam in backroads lined with corn in Iowa for him to fail when escape was their only option.

Mary applied pressure to the bullet wound with one hand and frantically called the local FBI office with her other. Her family might have been able to help her, but she wouldn't live to see them arrive from England. In dire circumstances one had to make do.

And Mary had years’ worth of insider information of her husband's dealing she could easily trade for her treatment at a hospital and her son's continued safety.

So Nathaniel was 13 when his mother almost died, and he entered the witness protection program. He was thirteen when he became Neil Josten.

"Isn't it too similar to his real name?" Mary huffed, giving the trio sent to her hospital room a jaunty smile.

The mousy-haired social worker pushed up her glasses as she gave them a placating smile. "We find young children tend to adapt better when allowed some connection to their genuine selves."

Mary had rolled her eyes, but Neil had merely frowned. He had no idea what she meant by genuine self. Was he supposed to be like creative like Sam? Or logical like Owen? His life had been a mass of contradictions. The only thing he knew for certain was he didn't want to be brutal like Nathaniel.

The only thing he'd consistently been his entire life was scared.

He was fifteen by the time arrests were started to be made in Baltimore.

"You needed two years for that?" Mary spat as she talked to their handler over the phone from their Millport townhouse. "Fucking Moorhouse and Redler?

Neil dutifully filled out his homework as he sat sprawled out in the living room with the patio door open so he could smell his mother's cigarettes as she badgered tonight's lucky caller.

"I would have thought that you'd have something more to show for yourselves. Truly the incompetence is astounding."

Neil smirked as Mary's natural brogue colored her words. She could speak half a dozen languages with the precision of a local but rile her up enough and anyone would be able to tell she’d spent her childhood running wild in Manchester.

Neil pressed his pencil hard into the paper as he underlined yet another one of the rules for pickleball. Sure he couldn't even run around the neighborhood anytime soon, let alone play a game he's actually interested in, but the epitome of his online gym education truly was learning rules and regulations for sports he wasn't even sure were real.

"I'm allowed to lie on this one right?" He sarcastically asked his caseworker as he laid out the exercise tracker worksheet. "Like I'm not about to put myself in federal custody for claiming I have access to an Exy court? Since you guys said I had to be totally honest and everything"

She had rolled his eyes at him, but she didn't ask about Mary's late night phone calls to Uncle Stuart, so Neil took it for the win it was.

In another world, he was nineteen when his father’s people found them. Instead, he was fifteen. Fifteen with a limited skill-set since there are things that can be taught on the run that can’t be taught in a small flat under government surveillance.

The only bright side was that in this world, there was no car. He was not crammed in a trunk with Lola tool close, practically grinding on top of him as she reminded him how much he looked like his father. It’s a small victory.

Instead there’s screaming and knives and he had to watch. He had to watch with his heart in his throat as Romero showed no mercy. Watch as his mother died, watch until he can’t recognize her corpse anymore.

They took enjoyment in this. Lola’s practically laughed as he slammed into the wall, as she dragged her knife down his chest.

Neil spit in Lola’s face as she poured the gasoline. With his squirming, it only managed to douse half his body, but it was enough to finally wrench the screams from his throat as the flames bit into his flesh.

He was scared. He fought back anyway.

But that really wouldn’t have changed in either world.

The bullets that finally came, that finally bring everything to an end, did not come from his Uncle in revenge.

Instead they are fired by federal officers aiming to main so as not to lose the opportunity to interrogate the criminals that might have enough knowledge to bring all of East Coast’s organized crime to its knees.

The weeks that followed weren’t kind to him. Neil saw the pictures later and he didn’t even recognize his own face.

But for once, the people were kind. Kind enough to give him hope even as the rest of the world collapsed around him.

Somewhere else a scared boy finds his family and himself at nineteen on an Exy court. In this world, Neil Josten is twenty-six and finds them in a hospital. This is that story.

"It really was lucky that we found you with such short notice."

In general, Neil Josten didn't believe in luck. He certainly wouldn't call it luck when Palmetto Public Hospital had posted exactly the type of job he looked for on all the travel nurse job boards. Just desperate sounding enough to cause people to not ask too many questions, while professional enough to not make a big deal of his scars.

Neil took Chief Nurse Danielle Wilds' hand with a carefully constructed smile on his face. "I'm glad I'm able to help. Although I was under the impression, I'd be your replacement."

Wilds let out as a laugh as she seemed to instinctively cradle her baby bump. "My husband, Matt, you'll be working with him too, thinks I'm being ridiculous, wanting to show you around myself, but I'd truly hate for you to get the wrong impression of us."

Neil just barely kept himself from rolling his eyes. Every hospital thought they were so special. Like a family or some shit. Every hospital was wrong.

Procedure might differ slightly, and some places had more people worth avoiding. But in the end, all that mattered was that the nurses showed up, did their job and offered some kindness. Even if he’s no Abby, even if his version of kindness wasn’t so much sympathy as it is experience, kindness was essential.

He can never claim to know exactly what the patients are going through. Even if they showed up with third degree burns down half their body, a punctured lung, a broken arm and some knife wounds, he wouldn’t really know. He’d just know they’d hurt like hell. Even if the injuries were the same, their story would be very different.

No one breaks the same way.

Still the things a broken person can say to another broken person can often carry more weight.

It’s one thing to offer sympathy. It’s another entirely to nod in understanding that your body doesn’t entirely feel like yours anymore, that it might never feel like yours, but you just have to keep going forward.

Over the years, Neil got very good at moving forward.

Neil tossed his running shoes by the door. It took him less than ten minutes for Neil to add his things to the furnished apartment. He'd discovered only two hospitals ago that people ask less questions if his clothes weren't covered in wrinkles from staying packed. So Neil haphazardly moved the folded scrubs onto the cheapest hangers he could find.

3:08 PM I'm all moved in.

The responding string of smiley faces to Neil's message was instantaneous despite the fact it was the middle of the afternoon and Abby was likely still on shift. (Or maybe precisely because she was on shift and had her phone on to stay up to date on patients as opposed to cutting herself off from the rest of the world to try and squeeze out some sleep.)

He didn't feel guilty per say as he closed his phone. Abby knew better to expect much from him.

"Kiddo, I'm going to take what I can get. I understand you aren’t used to having someone in your corner." She said as she bundled him up for college, doing far more than anyone had expected of her.

Well he should have expected it of her. Abby had practically laughed in his case worker's face when Cindy had brought up the different moveout options for when Neil turned 18.

It was a strange thing to have someone, even if he kept her at arm's length.

It's for her own good. The little traitorous voice in his head whispered.

Logically, Neil knew that Abby was already in too deep. Anyone, including any of his father's men seeking retribution could find her by simply looking for his file. He didn't need to maintain a relationship with her in order for Abby to be at risk. She had housed him during the trial. That would be enough for them. There was no need to push her away, to prevent her from actually knowing him.

But he felt a little bad that she knew him well enough to not ask why he had a new number or what his address was. Moving so soon after getting a housewarming package of cookies hadn’t been an overreaction and he stood by that.

When he finally met him, Matt was more of an overexcited puppy than an actual person. He dragged Neil down to the cafeteria every day they shared a break. Matt carried the conversation easily needing only the slightest input from Neil to keep going. He talked about any and everything, from college exploits to TV shows to worries that he wouldn’t be a good dad.

“It’s not like I had the best example, you know?” Matt joked even as his eyes are serious.

Neil nodded, understanding a bit too well. “Still an example. Just an example of one way to fuck up. You’ll be fine.”

He ducked his head as Matt beamed too brightly at him.

Words were a weapon he’s used to, but everything about conversations with Matt felt wrong.

Matt made him feel unbalanced. He offered up genuine parts of himself so easily. Neil wished he had something to give him in return for his easy friendship and trust, but even what was safe to say felt like it belonged to a different person entirely, a person he didn’t want to be anymore.

And what was left after that? The fact he didn’t like books or movies or vegetables. It wasn’t a fair trade. Matt shouldn’t be content to accept the breadcrumbs Neil offers in return for his raw insecurities.

But he was.

And that made Neil want to try. Try to force himself into a person Matt deserved, someone real.

Creating that person was fucking exhausting.

After two weeks, he had more than enough. Neil had a bag lunch and a mission.

Neil slipped into the stairwell without anyone spotting him and headed up. He might be able get onto the roof. But he would settle for just one of the upper floors. As long as there was no well-meaning coworker attempting to engage him in the break room or bring him down to the cafeteria, Neil would consider it a win.

The door marked “Roof Access – Maintenance Staff Only" looked like it should be locked. But a few jiggles of the handle had it opening easily enough.

The roof wasn't empty like he expected. Instead there's a figure sitting cross-legged near the front edge of the roof. Even from here, Neil could tell the man is short. Small but not delicate. Probably a former athlete from the width of his shoulders, the bulk visible even through the loose black scrubs. His short blonde hair is slightly windswept, enough so that he can see the man’s black earrings.

Neil tried to place him. He is not the best with names. He didn't see the point of attempting to remember when he’d be gone soon. But Dan had wanted to introduce him to everyone, saying something about them not being a whole bunch of "do-nothings" and it would do him some good to know the typical inhabitants of the burn ward.

Allison had taken that a step farther. Probably because she wanted gossip and hearing vague descriptions wasn't very helpful to her.

Neil stared for a second, cataloguing the man from behind, before it clicked.

Andrew Minyard, Physical Therapist.

”Monster Minyard” Allison said as she brought him around with her one day, telling him everything he should know about his new coworkers. “Bites worse than his bark. If he wasn’t so good with hopeless cases or getting rid of particularly overbearing visitors, I wouldn’t even know why we kept him around.”

The little Neil’s seen already was more than enough to know Andrew’s good.

The only way the nickname seemed to fit at all was that the man was intimidating when he wanted to be, that he could turn himself into a threat with ease. Neil had seen him practically threaten a relative with a scalpel to the chest before turning on the dime and gently helping the patient bend the joints covered with skin grafts.

But the most remarkable thing was how Andrew always let his patients set the pace.

There were sections of his own skin where Neil had lost sensation. There were days when they'd ache or itch, but he couldn't feel much beyond heat. He'd nearly decked the first doctor who touched his arm without warning him. Neil hadn't even realized he was there until the hand moved to a less ravaged spot. Everything about it had made him feel unsteady. He couldn't rely on his body to stand guard for him anymore.

But Minyard never let his patients be surprised. He narrated everything he did before he did it. Nothing was a surprise. They could say no if they didn't feel ready or if something hurt particularly bad that day. He was flexible with the patients in a way he never was with the staff.

Neil hadn't actually heard Minyard utter a word that wasn't directly related to their jobs. He moved silently through the halls, meeting attempts to socialize with deep scowls.

Maybe he'd be better off scouting out somewhere else. There was no rule that Minyard owned the roof. But Neil was also used to spotting dangerous people and everything about Minyard screamed trouble.

“What are you doing up here?”

Neil hadn’t realized Andrew had even known he was up here yet. He didn’t bother turning when Neil forced the door open.

“Trying to avoid company.” Neil moved across the room until he sat next to Andrew. They’re not quite at the edge, but there’s no guardrail. It’s unnerving.

Andrew gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement, still not looking at him.

“What are you doing on the roof?”

“Used to smoke. Never broke the habit.”

Neil merely nodded as he unwrapped his sandwich.

Andrew tilted his head just slightly to the side. “I thought that you’d be put off by smoking.”

“Is it bad to say I like the smell?”

Andrew’s nose scrunched ever so slightly. "You lie. All the time."

Neil only nodded again at the accusation.

This time it isn’t quite a lie. He did like the smell. It’s not quite the same as the Lucky Strikes his mother would blow through after she thought he was asleep. But it’s close, certainly a lot closer than the smell of burning human flesh.

But it's not like Minyard's wrong either. He did lie all the time. Sometimes it felt like lying came easier than breathing.

The rest of the staff hadn’t seemed as bothered about the lies. They were practically amused by them. Neil had smirked when he passed the break room and overheard them sharing some of the most outrageous ones.

“I heard him say to 402’s kid that he was trying to steal treasure from a palace guarded by lava, and he hadn’t been able to jump far enough on his way out.

“At least that one’s child appropriate, he told 407 that was a victim of secret government trials of new chemical warfare weapons. As if anyone with a brain couldn’t tell those were accelerant flame not pure chemical burns.” Allison added.

No one mentioned “International Jewel Thief tortured for trade secrets.” And Seth didn’t bring up “I dabbled in porn to get through college. Got a bit too into temperature play” even if it had made patient 406 laugh uproariously. It was almost a shame his best lies were unappreciated.

They’d even started a bet on what the real reason could be. It would never be settled since it required asking him directly and none of them would do that. They all liked to pretend to have morals even as they bet on everything under the sun. Besides what sort of example would it set to their patients? The one staff member that actually looked like them and yet they couldn’t even show basic decency with regards to his privacy.

Maybe they have a whole separate bet about who’s finally going to work up the courage. Neil didn’t think any of them had put money on that person being Minyard.

Minyard turned to face Neil for the first time, "Tell me something true."

It wasn’t concern on Minyard's face. The look in his eyes barely qualified as interested, but Neil still wanted to answer him. He didn’t know what to say but he can't dismiss the fact that he wanted to answer. It was easy to admit to himself he doesn't typically want anything.

"I don't see the point of icebreakers."

Minyard tapped his fingers aggressively against the roof. "I'm not asking for party tricks. I'm asking for something true."

Neil wasn't sure he even had something true to offer. What does that mean when he existed as a lie stacked atop another lie? The things he’s already told Matt don’t hold enough substance to be something true.

"I didn't even think about becoming a nurse until after all this." He gestured to himself. He can't call it an accident even if that would make it simpler.

It was no accident where Lola pressed the dashboard lighter into his face, no accident in the way she poured the gasoline. Every one of her actions had been designed to cause him the maximum amount of pain. This wasn’t an accident.

"My roommate forced me into PT. Thought that since it was his new purpose in life, it would be mine too."

"It's not like he was wrong."

"You disgust me Josten."

"I mean you can't be so good at your job without feeling something."

"It's more interesting than other options."

"So you like it then." Neil teased easily.

“Give me one good reason to not push you off the side.”

"Just try. I'd drag you with me. It's a long way down.”

It grew from there. Going to the roof was no longer about avoiding the others by spending time with Minyard, but instead about just talking with Andrew. Eating on the roof together felt easy. The conversation had rules. Answer for answer, truth for truth. There was no awkward imbalance or a desire to be something more for Andrew. They could just talk.

Neil practically collapsed into his spot on the roof with his lunch in hand. He was painfully aware of how he’d gradually crept closer since their first conversation. "Why'd you choose Palmetto?"

"Brother didn't want me in Chicago."

Neil’s head shot up from the banana he was peeling. "You have a brother?"

Andrew glared as if to say it isn't your turn idiot.

He raised his hands in mock surrender. "All right I get it. Go on. Ask your question."

"And if I think we should be done for the day?"

Neil shrugged. "I can wait."

And he could. With each day spent on the roof, Neil only craved to know more about Andrew. But he liked what they had and wouldn't dare ruin that with his impatience. The roof felt safe in a way the rest of the hospital didn't.

Andrew grunted. “What's with the orange?"

Neil rolled his eyes. "You gave me a hard time for my question and you're asking that?"

"That wasn't an answer."

"And if I just like orange?"

"You're being ridiculous."

They sat in silence for a while before Neil offered up more.

"College colors. Just never outgrew them I guess. They make me feel..."

Safe wasn't the right word. He practically spent all of college categorizing every exit on campus. Like he was a part of something feels wrong too. He left his apartment for class and an ever-changing cubicle in the library. There wasn't a whole lot to be a part of.

But Andrew nodded anyway like he actually finished the thought instead of trailing off into silence. "Feeling is dangerous."

Andrew's words were simple, but Neil could tell from the way he looked at the edge of the roof that they meant something more. It was a confession and an accusation wrapped all into one.

"So is not feeling. What are you supposed to keep living for if everything is grey and I say that as someone who actually likes grey."

Andrew scoffed, but didn’t say anything more.

Even knowing that Andrew had a mysterious estranged brother couldn’t make Neil break the silence. It wasn’t that he was afraid of pressing too far. Andrew wouldn’t let him. But he knew what it’s like to feel exposed and Andrew had already shared more than usual today.

They sat in comfortable silence until a pager goes off.

Neil wasn’t sure what the others think about the two of them.

The hospital chaplain with her oddly died hair likes to smile at him whenever she came to their floor. He thought she might be friends with Andrew, but he didn’t really care what she thought as long as she stayed out of his way.

Matt complained that he never got to eat with his new buddy anymore, but Neil wasn’t sure the rest of them even noticed.

They must have though, because their friendship was no longer confined to the roof. There were conversations in the hallways, extra food left in the break room that Neil certainly hadn’t brought himself, jokes cracked in the locker room when only Neil could hear. What they had wasn’t something that could be easily hidden away.

It certainly helped that they shared patients. They could walk down the hallway, a patient between them and debate plans for the zombie apocalypse. 402, Luis Hernandez, was a particular good sport about it, even if he was a bit too moral about the end of the world.

Neil did not have soft spots for patients. He was the epitome of professionalism. But he could admit that he liked how he had an excuse to talk to Andrew longer with Hernandez around.

"You don't have to like your scars you know?" Neil said lightly as he perched next to Hernandez’s bed, grabbing more antibiotic for the man's face. "Don't have to hate them either."

Hernandez gave a half-hearted shrug, clearly trying to stay still while gesturing to the brochures in his lap. "Everyone keeps bringing up plastic surgery."

Neil hummed. “They're going to keep doing that. I'm not saying they're an eyesore or even particularly noticeable.” He uncapped a new jar of ointment. “It’s just easier for them if they can pretend it never happened. No scars. No problem.”

“But that doesn’t mean-“

“I’m not saying it would. People are just good at ignoring what isn’t directly in front of them. And if they’re forced to see it, they have to actually acknowledge you’ve been through some shit.”

"It doesn't change what happened."

“They see something wrong, keep trying to find ways to fix things even if you don't particularly think you're broken.”

"And if I want to be fixed?"

"Then that's on you. You're recovering quicker than we expected. I don't see why you wouldn't respond positively to cosmetic treatment." Neil sighed as he laid down the old wrappings "You've just got to be the one to want it. You've gone through too much to want to start living for anyone else now."

He heard a cough behind him and only barely resisted the urge to whip around. Instead he waited until he’d finished smearing the antibiotic across this section of the man’s chest. He turned to see Andrew leaning easily against the doorframe.

“You’re good to take lunch when you’re done here.”

Neil looked upwards and Andrew nodded.

It took very little time for Neil to finish knowing that Andrew would be waiting for him on the roof.

“Did you seriously believe all that shit you were telling Hernandez?”

Neil looked at his lap where his unopened lunch sat. He suddenly wasn’t feeling particularly hungry. “People always look at the scars. Drove me mad with their staring. Hard to be invisible when you’re this fucking distinctive.”

Andrew snorted. “The scars are the least of your problems then.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Neil felt the weight of Andrew’s stare as it slowly scanned up and down his body. He huffed, wanting an actual answer.

“Are you an idiot?”

“Considering you call me that about six times a week, yes?”

Andrew angled his body toward Neil instead of the steep drop of the roof. “People find you attractive.” He shrugged, “I’d blow you.”

The confession was dropped in the middle of the conversation so easily as if it didn’t send Neil’s entire world spinning. He dug his hands into his legs trying to focus himself in any way he could.

“You like me."

"I hate you," Andrew corrected him, but Neil barely heard him, even as the other men left.

Neil got to work slightly ahead of schedule, rolled his eyes slightly at the night nurse giving him the pedantic recap of today's patients, somehow managing to drone on for ten minutes without saying anything of actual value.

Andrew would be in later, he thought absentmindedly as he washed his hands. They might be able to coordinate their breaks if he was lucky. And you might even be able to convince him at gunpoint that lately he was pretty lucky. (Although that might also be because Matt was managing the schedules and his smile was a bit too knowing.)

Still today shouldn’t be too bad. There was only so much on the burn ward he hadn’t seen before and if they had had new patients, they weren’t any of his.

412's patient was a finnicky older woman who only seemed to be living out of pure spite. She'd been in a few days now and Neil's sharp tongue had done little to endear himself to her. So it was truly a matter of his job security to get in and out as quickly as possible. If he had to hear one more complaint about ungrateful grandchildren or idiot politicians, he would snap.

The television was turned up loud in order to reach the women's bed. Despite insisting her hearing was just fine thank you very much, this meant the news could be heard down the hall. Still, Neil had gotten used to putting his head down and doing his own business.

There were enough signs that he should have known. After all, he knew it had to be interesting in order to keep Linda from complaining about the slight pinch as he repositioned her IV.

He should have heard it before he turned around to see his father's face plastered across the screen with the bold red font "Serial Killer Nathan Wesninski found dead in Baltimore Penitentiary." They'd chosen one of the trial photos as opposed to the mugshot. He looked handsome in his expensive suit with the smile he only pulled out at the business parties that left Neil sore for days.

His feet were moving before he fully registered what the headline read.

It was pure instinct to put as much distance as he could between himself and his father as possible even if it was just the picture.

Neil couldn't hear the clatter as he knocked over one of the vases. He was sure Linda was having a conniption, but he couldn’t hear it. He’s not here anymore.

He was thirteen again. And his father wore a much more dangerous grin, the kind that meant no mercy.

Neil's hands were covered in blood as he dragged his mother to the car. Hands digging into her chest as if he could force her to stay with him.

He was eight and his father had crossed the line that was even too much for his mother.

His hands shook as he tried to thread his own needle. He held the needle with his mouth, trying to thread it with one hand and using the other to force the wound together. There was just so much blood and not enough time.

You can't stop running.

He thought he heard someone calling his name. Too close. He’s too close.

You're never safe.

He darted through the closest door. It was a dead end, but it was out of sight.

When you fight back, do so quietly and quickly. You cannot risk attracting another opponent Abram.

He forced himself into the corner. There should be something here, anything really to block the door. But he didn’t see anything, and he heard footsteps. Resounding thuds against the linoleum floor. They were too close.

And if you can’t run. You hide. You hide until I come get you.

There’s space on the lower shelf. It wasn’t very big, but he’s always been small. It should be just big enough. Neil shoved the folded bedsheets and patient gowns out of the way. He would look out of place, easy enough to find if someone cared to look hard enough, but for now he just hugged his knees to his chest.

Everything felt like it’s moving too fast. His heart was pounding so loudly he’s sure it’s about to give him away. His mind wasn’t even forming full thoughts anymore, just racing ahead of him. He squeezed himself even tighter as if he can force out the emotions.

He only vaguely felt his right hand digging into his left arm over the burn scars. He knew he should stop. He hadn’t picked at them in years, tried not to irritate them more than necessary so they didn’t draw attention to him. But it’s not like it mattered now. He’d be dead soon. He should be worrying about if Abby would be able to find the body and how long it’d take the hospital to notify her since after everything she was still his emergency contact.

He should have tried to think his way out of this.

But he couldn’t get his thoughts to stop for a fucking second. Just one second might be enough to find a miracle. But even if Neil Josten had ever deserved a miracle, he’d used up his share. He’d made it to twenty-six. But now, he was going to die.

He knows it won’t be a painless death. There’s only so much a human body could take, a line at which point the mind can’t comprehend the pain anymore. But Nathan Wesninski knew the line and played it like a violin. He’d want to take his time, really make his son feel every inch of his displeasure. There was no way Neil would be able to contain his screams for long enough to satisfy him. His father would risk getting him out of this hospital if it meant he could take his time.

Neil wouldn’t let himself be taken. To lose consciousness now was to accept a long painful death. He would not leave this hospital, not ever again. He would take a quick painful death over a long painful one any day.

But to get a quick death though he needed to be here. And he couldn’t seem to force himself to be. He kept seeing flashes of other moments.

Blood snaking down toward the drain of their concrete basement. Romero’s fingernails digging into his skin as Lola brandished her knife. His father’s grin menacing and horrible.

It spoke to his terror that he didn’t notice when the door opened.

"Hey." The voice is soft, gentle in a way the Butcher of Baltimore was never capable of sounding even when he was playing pretend as a productive member of society.

Still the sound has Neil's head shooting up, just to be sure. Andrew is standing with his back to the door.

"You're Neil Josten. You're in the supply closet at Palmetto Public Hospital. You're safe." The words wrapped around him like a caress.

It felt less like he was drowning.

Neil still couldn’t move, so he just stared. Stared as Andrew moved forward, every step light, his arms raised in front of him to show his empty hands.

Andrew repeated the refrain as he squatted down near Neil's hiding spot in the linens. His hazel eyes stared into Neil's. They're warm like sunlight, like they could cut through the shadow of Neil's soul.

"It’s over. You're safe. Can you breathe with me?"

Neil didn't move. He couldn’t force his tongue to wrap around the words, couldn’t even decide what the words should be.

"We're going to do this together." Andrew shifted from his squat to sitting cross-legged next to him. He's close to the shelving unit, but he wasn’t trying to force Neil out. Andrew exaggerated his own breathing.

He didn’t know how long they sit there before Neil feels his own breathing falling in sync. They're not deep breaths. Just shallow rasps, but he's trying.

Andrew put his hand out in front of him. "Can I touch you?"

He nodded haltingly.

Neil didn’t move away when Andrew gently cupped the side of his face, running a finger over the puckered skin. “You’re not there.” His voice was soft, but it practically echoed in the small closet.

When Neil nodded this time, it feels more natural.

Neil shifted in his position on the lowest shelf. He wiggled his limbs slowly, taking stock of all ten toes and fingers. He's all in one piece. He's fine.

He didn’t know what Andrew sees in his glance, but he's happy when Andrew backs up so he can crawl out of the shelving unit. "Yes or no?"

He hated how broken his voice sounded. His father wasn't even here. His father was dead. He shouldn't sound so lost.

Andrew's stare was penetrating. "To what? I'm not going to kiss you. You're having a mental breakdown Josten."

Neil bit his lip. That hadn't been what he was thinking of at all. He almost wished he had been, because it would have been nice to just lose himself in the sensation, let his body be consumed with raw need for Andrew until there was no room for fear.

"Just touching you. Leaning on you."

Neil knew Andrew didn't like being touched. It felt wrong to want to envelop himself in Andrew, to even ask knowing that, but he's desperate.

"It's a yes," Andrew said as he settled down again legs extended in front of him.

Neil curled easily against his side, Neil's head resting in the crook of his neck. It's nice to sit there just listening to Andrew breathing, knowing that there will never be a future where Nathan Wesninski will get his hands on this bright spot in his son's world.

"I should be happier."

"Bullshit. There is no should."

"He's dead. He's finally dead. That has to mean something."

Andrew adjusted himself to free one of his hands. He threaded it easily through Neil's hair. "Maybe someday it will. When was the last time you thought about him before today?"

Neil wanted to snap back that he'd never stopped thinking about his father, that every decision he made was just one in a long way of keeping himself safe from Nathan Wesninski and his subordinates. But he couldn't. For the last month or so, Palmetto had felt safe.

He'd spent nights marathoning movies in Andrew's apartment and stolen moments on the roof. He treasured Matt's laughter and the yell of joy at grocery deliveries that was quickly hushed because babies are fickle things that never stop crying. He even thought of Allison trying to convince him to let her take him shoe shopping.

Slowly Neil had built something, something untouched by his father. And then his gloating face had come crashing into it, ruining something even in death.

Andrew took his silence as a sign that he was right. “They come where they aren’t wanted. Doesn’t mean they get to stay.

Neil hummed and leaned more of his weight onto Andrew.

“Do you have any other clothes?”

Neil looked up at him confused.

“You’re not staying here,” Andrew said as if talking to a small child.

Neil pushed himself into a standing position, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet to try to give credence to his protests. “I’m fine. I’ve got a whole shift ahead of me.”

Andrew glared. “I’m taking care of that.”

Neil wanted to call bullshit, but he didn’t.

He let himself be manhandled into the locker room where Andrew tossed him some clothes. The black sweats are too short, but the sweatshirt hung comfortably off him. The grey material smelt like Andrew, so he hugged it tighter to himself as he waited for him to get back.

He didn’t jump when Andrew wrapped an arm around him and directed him toward the parking lot.

Maybe he was just done feeling, because he couldn’t even find it in himself to be surprised by the GS Andrew pushed him into. It was much nicer than anything a PT should be able to afford.

They drove in silence. At first, Neil stared out the window letting the surroundings blur as they got on the highway. Eventually though he shifted to stare at Andrew. Neil wasn't sure how long it had been when Andrew finally pulled off the highway into a dingy gas station. The sun had set at some point, but that wasn't much of a clue. Neil didn't even bother to check the clock when Andrew turned the car back on with his hands full of junk food.

"Do you want to go back to your apartment?" Andrew asked as he viciously bit into the twinkie.

"No." The answer was instantaneous even if Neil didn't know why. He should want to go curl up in the far corners of his bed with the door locked and the world unable to touch him. But the thought of leaving this moment, leaving Andrew felt like too much.

He didn't know when Andrew turned into a safe place. Neil was used to standing on his own, but now it felt like he didn't have to. It wasn't just today. Andrew had been there today, but the trust had been building gradually until Neil realized it felt like Andrew could protect him from the world.

"Kevin's going to ask questions."

Neil barely stifled his groan. While he'd only met the man a handful of times, Andrew's roommate was a common topic of conversation on the roof.

"Why do you even live with him if you hate him so much?" Neil asked.

"Don't ask stupid questions." Andrew said his eyes still focused on the road.

Because he's one of yours. Neil thought to himself.

Kevin was Andrew's in a way Neil could never be. Kevin was the person who stayed even after he fulfilled his end of a deal in college. Andrew may complain about his constant nagging, his hypocrisy when it came to Andrew's sweet tooth, his attempts to get Andrew to join his countless intermural sports teams. But at the end of the day, even when Aaron rejected him, Kevin stayed. And for that Andrew would never let him go.

Still the thought of dealing with Kevin’s seemingly endless energy felt like too much right now.

"The hospital's fine. I can get home from there."

Andrew gave him a disparaging look. "Now is not the time Rabbit. Give me the address."

"I'm surprised you don’t already have it. The lock on staff records too hard to break?"

Andrew snorted as he changed lanes.

He still felt rubbed raw from the way he'd broken so easily even if it had been nearly six years since he'd been near his father at all. So he knew Andrew was right, he couldn’t handle other people. He gave his address even as Andrew smirked.

After leaving the safety of the car, he'd ran about eight miles on the treadmill that had certainly seen better days. Typically he'd prefer to run outside and let the breeze carry his worries away from him. But the thought of people made him want to shrink. He'd take the cheap gym with locker rooms that smelt vaguely of mold if it meant he could avoid interactions with all but two people.

He ran to the hospital the rest of the week too. It wasn't worth trying to navigate the subway when he'd be looking over his shoulder the entire way.

Neil wasn't being paranoid. His father was dead. So were Romero and Jackson. Lola and the majority of the minions he'd met were in prison. But there had to be some he hadn't met. People the FBI hadn't even thought to warn him about. He hadn't expected to live this long and if he had to keep one eye over his shoulder, his duffel bag always packed and a new city every few months to keep living he'd do it.

But for now, he had time. He could make the most of his time at Palmetto.

He knew now that Andrew wanted him, and even though he’d never given the thought of kissing much thought before. He was suddenly desperate for Andrew’s lips on his. Andrew made him feel like he didn’t have an expiration date, like the future didn’t actually matter. For someone always thinking three steps ahead, that felt entirely new. But he thought he could get used to it.

Neil had just finished helping Hernandez check out when Dan walked back onto the unit for the first time.

He did a double take at first. He still had three weeks left on his contract and being reminded of just how little time he had left made him grit his teeth.

Typically he’d already have his next location lined up, but Neil hadn’t even sent in his application yet.

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew prolonging the inevitable wasn’t a good idea. Pretending he could stay long enough to memorize the feel of Andrew’s hands on his scars and their mouths pressed together desperately would do him no favors. Neil knew when he started that anything they started had a clear expiration date.

But seeing Dan with her little yellow bundle made him realize how close that date actually was.

Luckily Neil was spared from giving Dan more than a cursory nod due to Allison practically sprinting down the hallway to the front desk.

Allison’s smile was dazzling as she gestured toward the baby. “I’m so glad to see you. Now give me my niece.”

Dan merely rolled her eyes. She looked more tired than the last time Neil had seen her, but also happier. The dark bags under her eyes were matched by a brilliant smile.

When she hesitated to hand her newborn over, Allison put her hands on her hips. "You're in a hospital Dan. It's not like we don't know how to take care of her"

"And when was the last time you did an OBGYN rotation?"

Allison flipped her blond ponytail dramatically. "I'll have you know I could do it any day. I just like you too much to be reassigned."

"And you'd be a bitch to replace. Here." Dan smirked even as she handed over the baby.

"Oh She's absolutely precious, Auntie Allie's going to absolutely spoil you. Yes she is" Allison cooed as she held the newborn.

Dan watched her with a smile. "Randy's a lifesaver, but I'm not about to say no to more babysitters."

"Wait until she's older. I’ve got enough diapers to change as is.”

Dan snorts.

"So when are you back officially then? I need my bestie back."

"I'm still working out the details."

Allison snorted.

Neil busied himself with sorting through the pain medication records for 409, pretending to ignore the weight of Dan's stare.

But Allison had no intention of ignoring it. "You mean we get to keep him?"

"Honestly Al, he's not a stray cat."

"So?"

"And I haven't asked him yet, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't scare him away in the meantime."

"Of Course Dan. I wouldn't dare." Allison smiled again at the baby before announcing that clearly Auntie Allie was the only one who could give a proper tour and that maybe "We'll even find daddy in time for him to change your diaper."

Dan rolled her eyes but wasted none of her newfound baby-free time in waiting to approach Neil.

"I'm so glad I was able to catch you. I've heard nothing but good things about you since you started."

Neil glanced up from the paperwork, but kept his fingers wrapped tightly around the clipboard. "Most of them from your husband I assume."

Dan laughed good naturally. "You’d certainly think so. I swear if I hadn't already cemented myself as his favorite person, I'd be worried."

Neil grimaced.

"But it isn't just him." Dan stepped closer. "How are you enjoying Palmetto Public Neil?"

"It's fine."

Despite his lackluster answer, she seemed undeterred. "I'm glad to hear it, because we've been so happy to have you here. And since we're always short-staffed, I was able to get the board to approve your transition to a full-time position if you want it."

Neil swallowed, a pit already forming in his stomach. "That's-"

"You don't have to give me an answer now. I was just stopping in today and wanted to let you know as soon as possible so you could get your affairs in order."

She smiled so eagerly at him. He almost felt guilty when he said, "No. I'm grateful for the offer and all, but I can't stay."

"Oh." Dan's voice was so small. She looked absolutely heartbroken.

He grimaced again.

"Well, if you change your mind, just know you're always welcome here."

Neil forced himself to turn back to the paperwork to give her a chance to slink away. He wasn't actually reading, probably couldn't even if he tried.

They wanted him to stay.

And that very fact made him want to run until he couldn’t move anymore.

Neil at least stopped himself from running out of the hospital. He went to the roof, where things had always been just a little bit clearer. Maybe if he could just think, he could make his heart stop pounding.

"Why are you being such an idiot?" Andrew's voice was angrier than he'd ever heard him as he slams the door open. "I can't believe you."

"What's there to believe?"

Andrew stalked across the room toward him. Neil knew what angry men could do, but he wasn't afraid not even as Andrew practically spit in his face. "That you're just going to run off again like a fucking rabbit."

"It's better for everyone." His voice sounded empty even to his own ears.

Andrew dug his hand into Neil's shoulder. "Don't give me that shit."

Neil looked at him blankly.

"He's dead."

"So?"

"So stop running."

"I don't know how." The words were small, but he felt the truth in every ounce of his body. He's never had somewhere worth staying or anyone worth staying for.

Abby had tried, tried so much harder than anyone else. But it wasn't the same. He couldn't stop feeling like the scarred boy who'd come into her care determined not to need anyone. And she was all too willing to watch him walk away. He didn't need to stay anywhere to be worth something.

He couldn't explain why this time was different. Why he ached at the thought of never listening to Allison tease him. Why never talking to Matt again made him want to curl in on himself. He certainly couldn't explain why the thought of not being able to laugh with Andrew, not being able to see him every day physically pained him. He needed Andrew in a way he hadn't needed anyone since his mother died.

Neil was desperate for him to understand. "Tell me to stay. You have to tell me to stay."

"Why should I? Nothing will come of it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Neil wanted to scream. Scream that maybe if Andrew just asked he'd be able to. He'd be able to force down all the impulses telling him to run, just like he was able to stop himself from running out of the hospital entirely at Dan's offer. Instead he ran to the roof, where it was safe, where Andrew made it safe.

Andrew pushed him away and Neil already felt himself stepping forward unconsciously, trying to close the distance between them.

"It means I'm self-destructive, not stupid. I'm not going to ask when you clearly don't want to. I won't make you."

I'd never make you.

Andrew didn’t say that, but Neil heard it anyway. Because Andrew never pushed when it came to consent, to wanting this thing between them.

It's why he's so desperate for Andrew to understand now.

"It's always been 'go. It's always been 'lie' and 'hide' and 'disappear'." Neil gestured wildly as if trying to grab the words from thin air. "I've never belonged anywhere or had the right to call anything my own. You can't expect me to just know how to-”

Neil trailed off when he saw Andrew's face. It was stony even to his impassioned plea.

He didn't know how he could fix this. He felt like he was hanging on by a fraying thread as it was. "I'm so tired of being nothing."

"Then stop making yourself be nothing. Let yourself have this."

Neil felt himself floundering even more. "It's not that simple."

Andrew huffed and turned away from him. "I don't have time for rabbits or idiots."

He let the door slam as he left.

Getting through the rest of the day was a blur. Neil just kept thinking about Andrew walking away from him and the rooftop door echoing too loudly as it closed. His apartment was no better.

There was nothing in the little apartment that Neil was renting that looked remarkably like home. He was used to packing his life up in to the grey duffel bag every few months. Nothing he bought couldn’t be replaced at any big box store.

It never really bothered him before.

That wasn’t to say he hadn’t noticed how other people’s spaces seemed to fit them. But he had spent so long trying to blend in that he wasn’t even sure what he could add to make the space feel more like him.

He didn’t have the college pictures to string along his wall like Dan and Matt. He didn’t even have the dime-a-dozen motivational posters that Kevin seemed to favor the few times he’d been to the apartment he shared with Andrew. He certainly didn’t have the wall of books that Andrew kept in his own room.

Up until recently he wouldn’t have cared.

But for the first time in his life, Neil was starting to feel like a real person. A real person was supposed to have something that other people could remember them by, to identify them with. Neil had his job and the scars on his face.

And Andrew. Andrew who didn’t seem to care about either.

If anything Andrew scoffed at the desperation he brought to his job when they both know that you couldn’t save everyone, and that most of the time you couldn’t save the people who deserved it either.

But Neil could see the way he cared even if he didn’t make it his entire personality or guiding force. His chart notes were too detailed. His frown all the deeper when things went wrong. He was too good at his job to not care at least a little bit. And there was no one at Palmetto that could deny that Andrew was brilliant at his job.

While others could look at Neil and see nothing but his injuries, there was a way that Andrew looked at him, his eyes pooling like honey that made Neil feel like Andrew was seeing everything but his scars.

Somehow he even looked happy with what he found.

It made him want to stay, to take that little feeling and nurture it until Neil could see something in himself too. Something worth being happy about.

He sent out three texts one right after the other.

The first was to Andrew. “I’m not an idiot or a rabbit.”

It was simple, but it said everything. Neil wasn’t running from this, wasn’t running from Andrew. Tomorrow they could talk, but for now it had to be enough.

“Can I really stay?”

It was less professional than it should be, considering Dan would be his supervisor if everything worked out. But he didn’t have another way to ask. It felt like pulling teeth to even write those four words.

Neil shouldn’t have turned her down so quickly this afternoon. He should have let himself realize how much he wanted this, realize how forcing himself to move again felt like he was leaving a part of himself behind that he didn’t even know he had before.

But he needn’t have worried. Dan’s reply was practically instantaneous. “Of Course!!!! I’ll make sure to go over all the paperwork tomorrow.”

The last message was one he should have sent twelve weeks ago. It was only his address. But Abby would know what it meant. She always did.

#rbb 2021 #aftg #aftg fic #neil josten #andrew minyard #andreil #andreil fic #hospital au #so many potential triggers so please read bolded list #blood #burns #torture #panic attacks #are the big ones

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quazartranslates · 3 years

Text

Welcome to the Nightmare Game - CH 57

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

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Chapter 57: Witchcraft Sacrifice (XXVI)

[One of us went and came back.]

The last bloody word that appeared on the wall stunned Qi Leren.

What had gone and come back? Did it mean that a dead witch had been resurrected again? No, one of them going and coming back... Did that mean coming back here? Maybe, three years ago, there was a surviving witch candidate in the witchcraft sacrifice mission. Three years later, she came here again and mingled among them.

Was she a player or an NPC? Why would she do that?

The creepy feeling slowly climbed to the soles of Qi Leren's feet from the darkness in all directions, and then slowly climbed up his body along the nerves, stirring his imagination, making the already strange situation more complicated and confusing.

If someone survived last time and came to this underground palace again, who would it be? He, Ning Zhou, Lu Youxin, and Isabel were the only people who are alive now. The Ellie-Aisha sisters were unknown. Which one was most likely?

No, it was impossible to make effective inferences. From another angle, if that person received this task again, she would be familiar with the task flow and terrain. If you were familiar with the terrain…

Between crackles, Qi Leren suddenly recalled the situation when he was in the swamp tower. At that time, Lu Youxin asked Ye Xia if she needed to copy a map of the underground palace for her. Ye Xia told the truth under Lu Youxin's skill: she refused.

At that time, he and Lu Youxin thought it was because Ye Xia didn't trust them, but now that he thought about it, could it be because she was very familiar with the terrain of the underground palace, so she didn't need this quarter map at all?

But Ye Xia was dead. He saw and touched her body with his own eyes, and Xie Wanwan who killed her had died…

Was the body fake? The idea flashed by, and Qi Leren himself felt funny. This was not a detective novel, to be capable of putting the body in a false pretence. He had seen the bodies of these two people with his own eyes.

Isabel let out a whimper, struggling as if she had been strangled, looking very pained. Qi Leren checked her condition, and suddenly there was a flash of light. Could it be Isabel who went and came back? She also said that she’s lost her memory. Maybe in this lost memory, she followed her sister to the underground palace. For some reason, she escaped and lost these memories. Then three years later, she came here again.

Could it be what he thinks?

Oh, and the altar.

"Now all the seven witches are dead. According to the clue given by the wall, shouldn’t the altar have appeared?" Qi Leren said to Ning Zhou in wonder, "But now it seems that the altar hasn’t appeared here. Could there be some conditions that need to be reached?"

Ning Zhou silently shook her head, saying she didn't know.

"She seems to be about to wake up." Qi Leren caught a glimpse of Isabel's eyelids trembling a few times and immediately squatted down beside her.

Isabel mumbled, as if shouting for her sister, and finally woke up from a coma. When she woke up, she just lay on the ground and looked at the dark ceiling as if she had lost her soul.

"Isabel?" Qi Leren called to her.

Isabel suddenly got up from the ground as if possessed, took Qi Leren's arm and screamed, "It's her! She's back! It can't be wrong, it must be her!"

"Calm down and speak slowly, who is it?" Qi Leren pressed her shoulder and asked carefully.

Isabel, who calmed down from her excitement, stared at him with empty eyes. Her eyes were out of focus. She pursed her lips and whispered, "...The woman with the knife."

"Ye Xia? Have you seen her? " Qi Leren asked again.

Isabel's body was shaking and her voice was shaking: "Yes, three years ago, she was in the same carriage with my sister..."

Isabel, who was still in chaos, intermittently told what she’d recalled. From her messy and disordered statement, the memory she lost three years ago was slowly presented to the two people.

Her sister was taken away after being selected as a witch candidate. Isabel secretly inquired about the place where her sister was locked up. When the day of sacrifice came, she quietly followed the carriage to the forest and saw the witch candidates who had been driven out of the carriage. One of the ones with her sister was Ye Xia.

They were driven into the jungle by domestic dogs, and Isabel was worried about her sister, so she ventured into the forbidden forest after everyone left. At that time it was getting dark, and in the deep twilight, she frantically searched for her sister, trying to take her out of the forest, but she was quickly lost there.

Then, she met a woman.

It was a woman so beautiful she could not be described in words. In the sunset, she stood quietly under a withered giant tree, with a bloodied corpse sprawled at her feet. She looked at her, and her eyes couldn't tell whether it was coldness or gentleness, but only by looking at her like this, she had forgotten everything, even forgetting that there was a corpse lying at her feet.

"You are not the chosen one, why did you come here?" The woman asked her, her voice graceful and elegant as a lark singing in the morning light.

"I came to see my sister," Isabel answered.

When she heard her answer, the woman showed an expression like a smile, and the slightly curled corners of her mouth turned her from a perfect sculpture into a living person. She said briskly, "It's not the time for you to come, come back three years later."

When she heard her words, Isabel seemed to be possessed, and she couldn't help agreeing. When her consciousness began to blur, she struggled to ask the last question: "Who are you?"

The woman still smiled calmly at her, but gave a shocking answer: "I am the one you will serve."

After that, she gently touched her finger on her lips and smiled mysteriously and charmingly: "Brave little girl, you have to keep this secret for me."

Memories came to an abrupt end here, and Isabel woke up in her own bed and lost that memory until she saw Xie Wanwan's bloody body in the underground palace and finally remembered the scene in the forest three years ago.

Qi Leren was shocked speechless. After a long time, he murmured: "Is the person you saw the Devil of Fraud?"

Isabel covered her face and said trembling, "I don't know... I don't know who she is."

Frowning slightly, Qi Leren looked at Ning Zhou and found her deep in thought.

"If the Devil of Fraud really came to the sacrifice three years ago, it would explain why the last witch died so tragically." Qi Leren recalled the bloody tips on the cliff and the witches he had met, and his mind had vaguely connected things together.

For some purpose, three years ago, the Devil of Fraud joined the mission disguised as an ordinary person. She was happy to see human strife, deception and despair. She played with the group of poor witches and provoked them to kill each other. He still remembered that Isabel's sister was locked in an iron coffin and was burned alive by pouring in molten iron. She said, "I didn't hurt her... She lied to you", and this "she" probably referred to the Devil of Fraud. And the witch who created the dreamworld. She twisted in the love that she wanted, and constantly destroyed other witches. I'm afraid it was just a game for the Devil of Fraud.

But what happened to Ye Xia? She also took part in the sacrifice for three years, and then she survived? On one hand, she may have been the final winner of the last sacrifice, or on the other, she may have just survived. However, she survived, and came back here again three years later, and then died in the hands of Xie Wanwan.

It was too strange, it didn't make sense at all. For a woman who had survived the task under the control of the Lord of Fraud, it didn’t make sense for her to have simply died here!

Qi Leren thought more and more, and looked forward with empty eyes. Ning Zhou stood there, quietly looking at the words on the wall, just a figure which easily attracted his attention.

Qi Leren suddenly remembered his situation of talking with Ye Xia in the dreamworld. At that time, Ye Xia had said to him…

-Whether you are truly loved or falsely loved, you are happy as long as you are loved. Sometimes love can't help but help itself. Even if you know it’s impossible, you won't give up easily.

Was that "Ye Xia" herself? Who was the impossible love she said she was dedicated to?

In the silence, a familiar voice came.

"Oh, I finally found you."

Qi Leren almost jumped up from the ground as this voice came from the door of the temple. A translucent virtual shadow stood there, like the wandering souls everywhere in the underground palace.

Lu Youxin's phantom stood there with her arms crossed and looked at them calmly. Her voice mechanically said, "Congratulations on winning the lucky prize. I am a kind-hearted person and this is the final time I’ll do a good deed of the day. I’ll tell you three crucial things, whether you can live and leave here depends on this. "

"Lu Youxin?" Qi Leren's voice was lost. No matter how you looked at it, the person in front of them was not like a living person, but a spirit.

Lu Youxin seemed to be unable to hear his voice, and her voice continued stiffly: "First, I am dead. Second, the woman who killed me seems to be Xie Wanwan. Third, she can transfer her soul. She took my body. To sum up, the murderer is Ye Xia."

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Editor’s Note: Double release today because it slipped my mind yesterday Σ(ﾟДﾟ)

A major plot element has finally come into play! Keep the Devil of Fraud in the back of your minds, folks! ;)

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[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

#Welcome to the Nightmare Game #欢迎来到噩梦游戏 #danmei

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padfootagain · 4 years

Text

Girl Crush (XXIII)

Chapter 23: Irises For Congratulations

Here we go with a new chapter!!! I'm back from my event, and will come back to regularly updating this story again!

I hope you like this chapter, it's very cute. VERY VERY CUTE!! Be careful, as you read it, you might be smiling too much because of it!

Word Count: 2578

"Is that the last chocolate chip cookie?"

"It is."

"Are you gonna eat it?"

"You are stress-eating again."

"It's a chocolate chip cookie. It's chocolate, Harry. I don't need stress to eat the last of these."

He chuckled and ended you the last biscuit.

"Thank you," you chimed with a little happy wiggle that made his entire soul and heart and body melt with tenderness.

All air left his lungs and he found it unbearably difficult to inhale again. It took him several seconds to calm down again.

"I'm sure everything is going to be fine."

"You don't know that," you replied with your mouth full of food, waving your finger to strengthen your argument. "I could lose the deal on the shop if my bank doesn't accept the loan. And are you a banker? No."

"My dad is in finance…"

"Is your dad in charge of loans? I don't think so."

"Y/N, please, I am begging you, relax."

You sat cross-legged on the floor, dressed in your most comfortable pyjamas. Harry was wrapped in his purple bathrobe you loved stealing from him as often as you could, a little frown creasing his forehead.

He was so focused on this game of scrabble he fought against you… he did hope to win for once, after all.

"What if they say no?" you asked, and your voice was too fragile this time, Harry looked up from across the board game.

He reached out to imprison your hand in a tender, reassuring hold.

"They're going to say yes," he stated with an unbreakable confidence. "And if they don't, then you'll find something else. It's your dream, you're gonna make it. Maybe it'll take a little longer in the worst-case scenario, but you'll make it."

"Do you really think so?" you asked in a shy voice.

"You are the most deserving and hard-working person I know. You're going to make your dream come true."

"I mean… you did make yours come true, so… I guess I can too…"

"Of course you can. And don't forget that I still lost X-factor..."

"Twice, technically."

"Yep, I'm a loser. And yet…!" he gestured towards himself and put on a ridiculously exaggerated toothy grin. "I fooled everyone!"

You let out a laugh, finally feeling your shoulders relax a little. All your tension had not left yet, but you were one step closer to being your normal self again.

"More seriously though. Y/N, you are going to get your own flower shop. I know you will. The decision is out of your hands now. I know that it's nerve-wrecking, but there is nothing you can do about it anymore. All you can do is wait and see."

You nodded, knowing he was right. It didn't mean that your anxious mind stopped worrying, but the more rational part of your brain did accept the truth for what it was.

"There is something I can do though," you replied, giving his hand a playful squeeze. "I can kick your arse at scrabble again."

He narrowed his eyes, pulling the hood of his bathrobe up.

"This is war, Y/N."

"Well, a slow one then, cause you've been looking for a word for ten minutes!"

"I'm thinking!" he faked outrage. "Besides, we're also talking, and that's distracting."

He was also very distracted by the mere fact that you were there, close to him, in your adorable pyjamas, and the thought of kissing you was stronger by the minute. But he didn't feel the need to mention that part.

Outside, it was raining hard in L.A, thunderous clouds pouring their heavy shadows on the busy city, making it look like it was night. The sound of heavy droplets falling against the windowpane was the only sound echoing through the house. Harry was thinking about how he could place the word he had found on the board when your phone buzzed, distracting him again. You checked who was sending you a text, and he didn't need to ask who it was. The small smile that formed on your face as you read the name spoke volumes.

His heart tightened when he wished he was the one who made you smile with a simple text.

"How is Gareth?" Harry asked, his tone one of innocent conversation, but his fist clenching without him noticing.

"He's okay. He was asking about the loan. Also... uhm... he's been looking for a place for the two of us."

Harry froze, his breathing caught in his throat, and even his heart felt like it had stopped beating.

You... were going to live together?

"Oh... congratulations."

"We haven't found a place yet."

"Still... good news!" he lied.

You wanted to move in with Gareth... you would be living with him...

Harry tried to focus but it was an information hard to process. He reckoned that his mind was blocking all the meanings it involved, actually. He reckoned it was for the better too, especially for as long as you were sitting across from him.

"Yes! And Gareth is gonna look for a place while I take care of the shop, it'll save me time."

"Hmm…"

"I'm really happy you two get along!" you grinned, looking up to meet Harry's gaze again. "It's important to me that you can be friendly to each other."

Harry faked a smile to hide the lie he was about to utter.

He had always been so honest with you, and yet these days he felt like he spent his time lying. No malicious lies at all. And he hated himself every time he had to bend the truth to fit what he should say instead of uttering the words he meant. But how could he tell you the truth?

He couldn't tell you that the sight of Gareth touching you even in the most innocent manner made him sick. That he had nightmares about the two of you in bed together. That he couldn't think, nor sleep, nor function at all every time he thought of the two of you kissing. That he was so jealous he could barely breathe sometimes. That it was so painful to see you happy with someone else he reckoned getting his heart physically ripped off his chest would be more pleasant.

And now you were about to live with him... you would share a bed with him every night...

He pushed the thought away, it was too unbearable a thought for him right now.

But that was the thing: you seemed happy with him. You seemed to genuinely care about the guy, and no matter how much Harry hated the idea of him being with you, he couldn't deny that he seemed to have earnest intentions towards you. He seemed to really care about you, and no matter how Harry wished it wasn't the case, when Gareth told you he loved you, he meant the words just as much as Harry would have if he had the chance to speak them.

So what could he do? He was your best friend, and you had never let him think that you could be anything else, and now you were with another man who treated you right and made you happy. It would be so unfair if Harry spoke his mind.

So, once again, he lied. Or, as he liked to think, he 'bent the truth a little'.

"Yeah, I like him. He's a nice guy."

It wasn't a full-on lie. Harry couldn't deny that Gareth was a nice guy. He just happened to also hate that particular nice guy.

"I mean… it's so important to me," you repeated, giving him a shy smile. "I couldn't be with someone you didn't get along with."

"Really?" Harry asked back, genuinely surprised.

You replied as if your answer was the most obvious truth in the world.

"Of course. You're my best friend. You're the most important person in my life. I couldn't be with someone you hated."

He frowned slightly, studying your reaction with great care.

"So… if I told you that I didn't like Gareth, you would leave him?"

You shrugged.

"I would ask for a good reason, but… at the end of the day, you know me better than anyone. And I trust your judgement when it comes to people. So if you don't like someone, then I guess, yeah… I would. Or I would at least consider it. If you had a good enough reason, then I would listen to you, and call it a day. Besides, I wouldn't choose a guy I've known for a few months over my best friend, who has been with me for years! I'm too loyal for that. But you like him, so all is fine!"

Harry remained silent, intensely staring at you, as if he could pierce to your soul with a simple gaze.

Because he wanted to tell the whole truth all of a sudden. Tell you that he hated the guy. That he wasn't good for you. That you deserved better. That you could have so much better. That he was boring and you needed a guy who made you laugh with every word. That you were way too kind for him. That you should be with…

… with who? With Harry? Harry who was never around? Who would spend months thousands of miles away? If Harry didn't consider himself as an evil person, he knew he had room for improvement still. You had made him see that. You made him see it every day. He wanted to be funnier for the sole purpose of putting a smile on your lips and hearing your laugh more often. He wanted to be kinder because you were so generous yourself, and he was terrified at the idea of hurting you in any way. He wanted to make great songs because he wanted you to like them, because he longed to hear your voice sing the words he had written to the tunes he had invented. He wanted to be selfless because he wanted to give his entire being to you…

He wanted to be better because he wanted to be someone who would deserve you. Which meant that he knew that he didn't deserve you for now. And as he thought more about it, he reckoned he probably never would. He was already outrageously lucky to be your best friend.

And if he hated Gareth, it was because of his own bloody feelings, and had nothing to do with your boyfriend himself. How selfish it would be for him to tell you the truth then. Make you break your own heart because he wanted you? He valued your happiness way more than his own, had for what felt like forever. And he reckoned that if he acted like this, it would be the final proof that he didn't deserve to be with someone as wonderful as you at all.

So, he didn't say any of these words. Instead, he faked to be focusing on the game again, and nodded.

"Yeah, all is fine. I will cut off his balls if he hurts you in any way though."

You laughed, shaking your head, not recognizing how serious Harry was.

"I wouldn't expect anything less coming from you and your overprotective nature," you joked.

"Overprotective? Me?"

"You are."

"I'm not!"

"You are! You are overprotective. Clingy too. Jealous. But it's okay, I'm used to it."

"There's nothing wrong in me being worried about you. As you just said, we're best friends!"

"Forget I said that! And please, for the love of God, PUT A GODDAMN WORD ON THE BOARD!"

"You're the one distracting me!" he argued.

You laughed at his argument, and his laughter soon joined you, a perfect harmony echoing through his spacious home, as if the two sounds were meant to be heard in unison.

Your phone buzzed again, this time for an incoming call, and your heart jumped in your chest as you recognized the name of your banker. You shot a panicked look at Harry, but he gave you an enthusiastic thumb-up and you gathered yourself to answer the call.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Ms. Y/L/N?"

"Yes, it's me."

"Mr. Lopez here. I'm calling you concerning your loan for your flower shop."

"Yes, did you have an answer?"

Harry studied your features, but couldn't really read anything across your face, your expression was too neutral.

"Okay, thank you so much. On Monday, noted. Thank you so much again for calling, goodbye."

You hung up, and Harry waited for you to put your phone down.

"So? What did he say?" he asked excitedly.

"So…"

"So?! Stop torturing me!"

But when you looked up at him, you were grinning.

"I got my loan!"

"YES!!" Harry threw his hands to the air, cheering, before you both reached over the board to hug. "I told you!"

"Yes! I got it! I need to go back on Monday to sign a few papers, but… I did it, Harry! I'm going to open my own shop! I did it!"

"You did it! You did it! It's gonna be amazing! Hang on!"

He pulled away, jumping to his feet and disappearing to the kitchen, while you dried your eyes. You were so happy.

At last, you had a chance to make your dream come true. And you were sharing this moment with the person who was the most important to you. It was all perfect.

Harry came back a minute later with a bottle of champagne, two glasses and a box wrapped in blue paper.

"I had prepared everything, obviously. I told you I knew you would get it!"

"What's that?" you asked, nodding to the box, while Harry was putting down the bottle and the glasses.

"It's for you. Open it while I pour us some well-deserved champagne."

"For me?"

"Yeah. For your shop."

"Harry, you didn't have to."

"No, but I wanted to be the first one to give you something for your shop. Come on, open it."

The cork left the bottle with a loud 'pock' while you tore the wrapping paper apart and opened the box.

Inside was an elegant slate upon which the words Sunflowers and Peonies were painted in your favourite colour.

"You can put it on the counter, just the way you wanted," he explained, pouring some champagne in the two glasses. 'What do you think?"

"You remembered the name of the shop…"

"Of course, I did! Do you like it?"

You tried to be discreet as you brushed your tears away. You reckoned that you had never felt quite so happy and loved in your entire life.

And maybe you should have thought that the moment wasn't perfect, because Gareth wasn't here. But the truth was, you didn't even think of him. You didn't miss him at all, not now. Now, you were with Harry, and he was making it all absolutely perfect.

"Thank you so much. I love it."

"Good! Now, cheers! To Sunflowers and Peonies!"

"To Sunflowers and Peonies", you accepted the toast, and drank some champagne with him.

You cleared your throat, trying to stop any tear from falling, and decided that changing the subject was the best option.

"It's still your turn to play."

Harry finally did put a word on the board and wrote down the count of his points. It took you less than a couple of minutes to add a seven-letter word.

"Oh for fuck's sake, Y/N! Can't you let me win, for once?!"

****************************

Tag list : @ponycake27 @horsesreign @xinyourdreamsx @jbluevelvet@notkeppeki @daynigt-dreamer-stuff @fudgeflyss @stuckupstucky@snek-shit @suchatinyinfinity@i-padfootblack-things @buckybsarmy @heyohheyitsgabi@jigsawlover10 @emyyjemyy @addictedtofictionalcharacters @staringmoony@madamrogers @cronias13 @stylesfics-xx @mellamolayla @mariaenchanted

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles series #harry styles imagine #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #imagine #series

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mythgirlimagines · 3 years

Photo

Just in time for this week’s Tuesday, I have a special little talentswap! Speeding her way into your inbox with her delivery in hand is Myth, the Former Ultimate Delivery Girl.

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BACKSTORY AND TALENT

As the third and youngest daughter of two restaurant owners, Myth more or less grew up in her parent’s restaurant, known as “Heart’s Kitchen”. Unfortunately, it‘s safe to say that Myth lacked the cooking skills of both her parents and older sisters. However, her true ability lies in physical stamina and running speed, which makes her the perfect person to conduct deliveries, while her parents and sisters are busy cooking and waiting tables. Being part of both the track and gymnastics club at her school really helps with delivery speed and traversing the dangerous parts of the massive town that she lives in. To this day, Myth has always been able to deliver her parent’s food in 30 minutes or less, no matter how far or dangerous the intended location is. It’s safe to say that she has interacted with various colorful personalities in her high-speed career.

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RELATIONSHIPS

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Tailor

As the owner of “Ripped Seams”, only the greatest tailor shop in all of town, Wyre holds the honor of being Myth’s first ever customer, and is Myth’s best friend to this very day. Despite being rough and tough, Wyre’s craftsmanship when it comes to their famous suits is truly unparalleled. Ever since they first met, Myth knows exactly what Wyre’s usual is: high-grade yakiniku that’s light on the sauce so Wyre’s high-class suits won’t get stained. Sometimes though, Wyre wishes Myth could take a break once in a while. Wyre may stay up all night perfecting the seams on their suits, but Myth is truly on an entirely different level.

Outfit: Glasses, tanned overcoat over a white dress shirt and an orange bowtie, matching tan pants, brown loafers.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Barista

Scar, or “The Supreme High Lord of the Liquid Realm“, as she is called on the job, runs the atmospheric and esoteric “Witch‘s Brew”, a coffee shop famous for its horror aesthetic and the fantasy personas that all the staff have on the job. Scar and Myth regularly cross paths, for they both have jobs in food service and similar workaholic personalities, much to the concern of the people around her. Sometimes, when Scar’s hands are tied, she entrusts Myth with delivering her fresh and hot coffee and pastries to customers all around town. Myth’s speed and efficiency means that the coffee/pastries arrive at the door still hot.

Outfit: A black hooded cloak, smudged-up eyeshadow, purple gloves, mask, scarf and boots from original design.

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Samurai

Living on the rural outskirts of the large town, Fusion lives in an old-fashioned temple with his younger brother, parents, and paternal grandparents, who also happen to be samurai and the last surviving members of his once-prestigious clan. Fusion usually spends his time training with his family members, and this has worked up quite the appetite in him. Myth delivers Fusion his daily fix of 10 full bento boxes. Myth also learned that, despite Fusion’s large and threatening appearance and talent, he is very friendly, loyal and protective of others, a bit like a father. Fusion thinks Myth has the potential to be the perfect kunoichi.

Outfit: A large afro tied into a man bun, a white haori, bandaged-up arms and hands, blue hakama pants with a brown scabbard that houses his longsword, white socks, brown sandals.

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Revolutionary

Having once lived in the poorer parts of the town, Fusion II has led a rebellion with her fellow lower-class brethren against the corrupt government, and now it is one of the nicer parts of town. Fusion II regularly sees Myth delivering food around town, and views Myth as a slave to her job, and just wishes Myth could chill out and take a break. But she couldn’t deny that Myth’s stunts are awesome and her food is delicious, especially the veggie sliders. Myth remembered when the town was a dangerous slum that she had to parkour around, and internally thanks Fusion II for making her job easier.

Outfit: Black leather jacket with shoulder spikes, ripped jeans, a red megaphone clipped to her belt, spiked boots that add to her height, sunglasses and undershirt from original design.

Just Anon, Ultimate Thanatologist

Because of Janon’s talent and appearance, you would expect him to be somber and emo, and you would be right in that assumption. But as hard as Janon tries to come off as an angsty and cynical jerk, he has a soft spot for children and regularly stays beside them and comforts them in their death-related grief. Myth regularly delivers last meals to people are planning to die soon, so she definitely saw Janon at his job. Janon would never admit it, but he is seriously concerned about Myth’s work schedule One look at Myth was all it took for Janon to know that Myth will die from overworking herself.

Outfit: A black skeleton themed hoodie and matching face mask, black eyeshadow, formal wear from his original design.

Sparkle Anon, Former Ultimate Priestess

Having grown up raised by overly religious folks, Sparkle was fed information about the Holy Book day after day and is very knowledgeable regarding virtues, vices and history of her religion. Sparkle has also managed to convince people of various other fates to convert to her own fate, and is hailed by the town as a kind and charismatic soul. Sparkle’s loud voice really helps her in her religious sermons and other events that she was asked to host. Myth regularly delivers Heart’s Kitchen’s food to Sparkle in the priestess’s off-days, with the restaurant’s famous fluffy bread being Sparkle’s personal favorite.

Outfit: A priest’s cassock with a sparkly rosary necklace, blue slip-on shoes, glasses from original design.

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Card Shark, and Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Gunslinger

Residing in one of the most crime-ridden and seediest sections of town, Egg and Wet Sock are feared entities in the town’s underground crime ring, with Egg being the brains and Wet Sock being the brawn. Myth regularly has to watch her back or else the Freak Twins will jump from the shadows and do cursed things to her order. Without even missing a step, Myth manages to parkour and dodge any accosting and shooting attempts by the Freak Twins and get the order delivered on time, much to the irritation of the diabolical duo, who just wants the busy delivery girl to stop sapping illegally-earned money out of them.

Outfit: White dress shirts, brown vests, black pants, black heeled boots, glasses from original designs, Egg’s vest buttons resemble card suits and Wet Sock has brown holsters that house black pistols.

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Drummer

Having been suckered into joining a garage metal band that was eventually named “Ruined Petals”, Curious is renowned by metal fans for their straight face and stoic demeanor despite their wild fashion and fast-paced drumming.Despite thier passive personality, Curious is renowned by their bandmembers for being the heart of the band and the glue that holds the band together. Curious’s bandmates regularly orders Heart’s Kitchen’s famous spicy wings and Myth is always there with their order. They regularly order the wings to watch Curious eat them with utensils and without even flinching.

Outfit: Hair that reaches past their shoulders, elaborate makeup, black head bandana, open black vest, white chest wraps, black gloves, black ripped jeans, spiky black boots.

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Pinball Wizard

With an unparalleled win streak and an equally unparalleled temper, Nerd crushed previous pinball records in every arcade that he has ever been to. Rumor has it that he destroyed a pinball machine for losing a game the first and only time in his life. Because Nerd pours most of his time into pinball, he regularly forgets to eat, so Myth always delivers him small food packages that Nerd always incinerates with his scouter in response. Nerd always tries to incinerate the irksome delivery girl with his scouter, but Myth’s inhuman speed and parkour skills means she always escapes unscathed.

Outfit: A black polo shirt with an obnoxious 90s-esque pattern, blue jeans held up with white suspenders, brown shoes, scouter from original design.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate Statistical Analyst

With statistics dominating his life, this petit prodigy would never do anything that would result in at least a small chance of death. This has resulted in him never leaving the small apartment that he lives in, for fear of his safety. His apartment neighbor took pity on and had Heart’s Kitchen’s food delivered to him. Because Eldritch stays in his apartment doing statistical calculations at all times, Myth couldn’t really get much of a read on him. Eldritch witnessed Myth’s fast running speed and parkour stunts, and seems to be fully convinced that Myth isn’t even a human, but rather a superhuman alien.

Outfit: His original outfit but with math badges as opposed to conspiracy badges.

Dream Anon, Ultimate Drill Sargent

Dream works at the “Solar Flare Boot Camp”, a fitness camp dedicated to future army soldiers. Dream’s infectious optimism and energy motivates the soldiers under her care, and they want to serve and fight for the country, if it means coming back to see the adorable smile of Dream. Dream regularly orders large amounts of food for both herself and her soldiers, which Myth manages to carry and bring to the gym without any signs of struggling. Upon seeing Myth clear the camp’s obstacle course in record speed, Dream knew that Myth had it in her to become a competent soldier.

Outfit: An army helmet, a standard camo-colored army jumpsuit, black sunglasses, brown army boots.

Iris Anon, Jr. Ultimate Racer

Dominating the national racing circuit with her trademark race car known as “Haley”, despite her young age, Iris’s contagious energy and dorky optimism have garnered her a fanbase, even outside of the racing circle. Myth regularly goes to Iris’s practice ring to send her food. Iris looks up to Myth, and can often be seen attempting to do the stunts that Myth can do. Unfortunately for Iris, while she is graceful when she is in a car, the same can’t be said for her skills outside of that, for she is superbly clumsy.

Outfit: A galaxy printed jumpsuit and helmet that matches her car, a blue scarf with a couple of yellow star patches, yellow gloves and boots, the helmet has lots of cracks and dents.

Purple Anon, Ultimate Mangaka

Purple is famous for her serialized manga, most notably “Ultraviolet”, a dramatic and tragic manga series centering around the newly crowned heiress to the throne reversing the effects of the cruel reign of her parents. Spending most of her time in her studio, Purple always has Heart’s Kitchen deliver her food, for she gets so wrapped up in her work, that she forgets to both eat and sleep. The few conversations Myth had with Purple were confusing, to say the least, for Purple is not only painfully shy, but she also speaks with rather archaic terms that Myth has trouble understanding.

Outfit: A black overcoat over a white dress shirt and a purple ribbon, a purple skirt, leggings and shoes from original design.

This series centers around the adorable (but simultaneously hardcore) delivery girl interacting with the odd and colorful denizens of her enormous town.

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PERSONALITY

DeliveryGirl!Myth is a hardworking girl, who would stop at nothing until the assigned order is right where it needs to be. She is energetic and athletic, being both a part of the track team and the gymnastics team at school. Myth almost never takes a day off, and doesn’t really have any hobbies apart from the before-mentioned sports teams. She is married to her career and has zero time for idle chitchat or romance. Despite being burdened with such a large workload, Myth manages to stay positive and manages to make enough time to get the deliveries in on time, regardless of how many orders are thrown at her.

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APPEARANCE

DeliveryGirl!Myth has shoulder-length brown hair with swept-up bangs and glasses. DeliveryGirl!Myth wears a white and pink cap with Heart’s Kitchen’s logo on the front, a pink track jacket with blue stripes on the sleeves over a white shirt with a “1#” logo on the front, blue jean shorts, long white socks and pink and white sneakers.

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So now that this week’s talentswap is finished, let me know what you think of this AU! In the meantime, have fun and stay safe!

-Fusion Anon

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Very nice! And can confirm, Wyre looks good in suits ^_^ ...and it took be a while to realize where the talents were from XD

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writing-the-end · 4 years

Text

LoL Chapter 23- the Labyrinth

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU and Red belongs to @theguardiansofredland )

So close to the end, so close to winning the entire championship. Only one more challenge, one more maze- and one more corrupted beast to prove themselves as the best in the entire kingdom.

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“Are you sure Magistrate Dolios is the dark wizard?” Keralis questions, tilting his head. “I mean, what he did was pretty mean, but...to practice dark magic?”

“It’s him.” Zedaph hisses, his fingers curling in the fabric set on his lap. “He had a crystal in the antichamber, he had a horrible collection of parts used for spells.” Zed clenches his fists and jaw, struggling not to burst out. Tango and Impulse try to ease their friend’s worries. “He… I read through his log. He killed our guild. We were just the first, the opening act. He used our friends, our family, to start his path of destruction.”

“But why? Why would he need dark magic? He’s the godsdamned Magistrate of Lairyon!” False looks around, leaning forward in the tavern they’re huddled in. It’s not the inn, but one closer to the stadium. They have a labyrinth to defeat soon.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Doc growls, tapping his fingers together into a triangle shape. “Regular magic just wasn’t enough. Regular power just wasn’t enough.”

“So he’s using the crystals to gather energy. Like what we saw in Gildara, with the grey landscape. And when the crystals sap energy for him to steal, it leaves those husk monsters behind.” Cub is slowly piecing together the puzzle, coming to understand everything he saw with the others in the heist.

“And he’s using the Chimaera’s championship to sap more energy. That’s why we feel so tired when we finish an event. He’s stealing our power, my dudes.” Ren shivers at the thought. His energy being drained, taken by some creepy crystal and fueling Dolios’s insatiable thirst.

“And we’re going back in soon.” TFC hums. “We have the labyrinth challenge.”

“We don’t have to go in- we got what we needed. We can leave, make a plan with this knowledge we have. Tell the king, tell the people. They’ll take care of it.” Etho leans back in a chair, tipping till it nearly dumps him backwards.

“But we’ve come so far!” Grian whines. “We could win the whole games, prove to Dolios that he never should have messed with us! Wouldn’t you love to see that smug smile of his wiped off when we win?”

Agreements rise around Grian, and even Etho can’t help but want to prove that bastard wrong. Xisuma steps in. “At least we know why we’re getting so exhausted. We’ll know to rest, calm down while we’re in the labyrinth. And...we can warn Team Crafted.”

“And then we’ll tell the king, tell the people. They’ll have to listen to us, we’ll be the champions!” Iskall grins. They’ve got this labyrinth challenge in the bag.

The group rises, walking out of the tavern and back to the stadium. All around them, Milliara is buzzing with excitement. The final challenge of the Chimaera’s championship, the end of the games, has come. A river of people flow along the raised streets, flowing like the canals beside them. Rushing towards the stadium. They pass by other guilds, who sneer and turn away. Angry they lost, especially to a team. Do any of them know that the Magistrate practices dark magic? That he’s killed entire guilds in his search for power? For what? Surely he doesn’t keep all of it.

It’s no matter to the hermits. They found the truth, and once they pass on this knowledge, it’ll be out of their hands. Entering into the bowels of the stadium, the locker room they sit in is empty. Once full of dozens more teams, now only two teams remain.

The entire guild sneers at the sound of Dolios’s voice welcoming the crowd. It’s muffled by the thick stone walls, but they can hear him tell of the harrowing journey ahead. And the grand prize that awaits for the team that defeats the labyrinth. All they need to do is pour a single bowl of water over the statue at the center of the labyrinth.

But between that and both teams were beasts, traps, and spells designed to slow them down. Perhaps even kill them, if they aren’t prepared. Across the way, Grian can see nerves crease across Quentin and Jerome’s faces. He can hear Mumbo muttering next to him. Anyone can walk into the labyrinth, but only the best teams can walk out. Grian isn’t going to let anyone die- not on his oath as a healer. Not from the hermits, and not from Team Crafted either.

Grian stands, walking across the locker room and coming face to face with Sky. The leader looks up, an easy and golden grin meeting Grian. “Hey, you here to wish us luck?”

“Not exactly.” Grian wrings his hands, looking over his shoulder, before dropping his voice. “Listen, Sky, we hermits discovered something… the reason we’re always exhausted?” Sky leans forward, his eyes looking out over the rim of his sunglasses. “The magistrate is doing something dark, and he’s taking our power for his own. If you see a crystal that’s pitch black, or a creature with soulless white eyes and ash grey bodies- run. It’s dark magic.”

Sky’s eyes widen, and behind him Grian sees Jerome and Mitch coil and look out at where Dolios’s voice can be heard. But Jason looks less convinced. “Why should we trust you? You’re trying to get us to fail, huh?”

Grian’s sighs, collapsing his head into his hands. “No, we’re trying to help you. Us illegal guilds have to stick together.”

Team Crafted’s faces all exhibit a mix of shock, surprise, and hints of defiance at Grian’s suggestion. But he’s smarter than he lets on. Jerome is the first to speak up. “Thank you for the warning, I knew that man wasn’t to be trusted. Good luck, hermits.”

With that, the stadium erupts in a roar. Team Crafted stands, and disappears into the field, disappears from view. A few moments later, the hermits are called into the spotlight. Just like the opening ceremony, TFC leads them out onto the pitch.

Or, what was the pitch. Massive hedges of writhing vines and ivy twist around the guild, engulfing them into a thicket that fills the once open arena. A dark, misty haze swirls, thickening where the hermits know the crowd is watching. Despite no eyes, no bodies visible, they can feel being observed. And yet the entire field is eerily quiet. They feel alone, no voices or light, only the sensation of sight.

In the distance, a grumbling roar pierces the mist. Captured by the damp air, it hangs and echoes around the hermits. Iskall hides behind Stress while False, Wels, and Etho draw their blades. But TFC is the one to break the silence. “No use standing here. Team Crafted already has a headstart, and I’m not letting them get any further. Cleo and Jevin, take point. If anything looks suspicious, or even if it doesn’t, Cleo can search for a soul. Jevin, can you whip up slime warriors to be our...ahem, bait?”

“You got it boss.” Jevin draws his circle, blue light dappling the misty grey and green. Blue bodies of slime morph to shape, awkward steps pushing the hermits forward. Deep into the maze. The mist engulfs the comforting stone wall of the stadium, and they were only among hedge and haze.

They push past traps set off by the slime warriors, around chimaeras and banshees soothed by Zedaph and Cleo, and over illusionary spells meant to turn them back. At each intersection, Scar marks off the way they came by plowing a giant X in the ground. When they reach a dead end and turn around, he blocks it off completely.

“I don’t remember the field being this big.” Impulse groans, feeling his body ache at the feeling he now knows to be the work of dark magic. They haven’t seen a crystal or a husk, which only makes the feeling worse. It’s coming from everywhere.

“They must’ve used expansion magic to make this place bigger.” Xisuma hums, kicking his boot at the feeling of something on his head. And again. He turns around, glaring at BDubs. “Would you quit trying to flat-tire me? It doesn’t work on boot, ya know.”

BDubs’s face causes X’s head to spin and his heart to drop. His eyes are wide, confused as to why X is yelling at him. “Tha-that wasn’t me, X. That was-”

One moment, BDubs is clear in Xisuma’s vision through his mask. The next, he’s disappeared. However, it’s not hard to find him with all the screaming. Writhing on the ground, mist and vines wrapping struggling in a fight with the plant mage. No matter how many times he casts his magic, it doesn’t shake off the ivy that crawls and drags him towards the hedges.

“Help! Help it’s got me!” BDubs screams, digging his fingers into the ground and rooting himself there He groans, the vines still pulling on him despite being an immovable object. “It’s gonna rip me in half!”

False swings her sword, the sharp steel biting into the vines and severing it from the briars snaked around BDubs. From the split branches, a red ochre spills out. Blood. The entire hedge rumbles to life, two eyes appearing in the mist. A branch breaks through the fog, colliding with a shield held aloft by Wels. The limb of the plant monster crushes the steel, tossing the shield aside and depositing the paladin onto his rear.

Glowing white eyes draw closer, and the twisted grey vines of the plant monster’s face appears in the dark mist. Vines grab for any limb the hermits aren’t watching, engulfing arms, pulling on tails, wrapping around heads. Xisuma traps a few of the thousand limbs in a blackhole, rolling away from the beast. Grian takes to the sky, dodging around the shoots that threaten to skewer him. He whips a blast of air, clearing the fog to get a better view below.

It’s not the whole labyrinth, but the beast has spread it’s vines in an intricate system among it. All which are slithering over the ivy, like snakes in search of the hermits. What he also sees in the sky, beneath the plant monster’s perch and dug into the ground beneath the pitch, was the one thing he’s learned to despise.

A dark crystal. It’s controlling the plant monster, black smog wrapping around the roots of the beast like chains. It’s practically bursting with energy, all the power and strength taken by the crystal during the entire course of the games. Even flying this high, he can feel the effects of his magic being siphoned from his body. “There’s one of those-”

Swatted from the sky like a bug, Grian crashes into the ground with a sickening thud. Scar and Mumbo race to help him up. Mumbo nearly throws up, hearing the sound of bones cracking under Grian’s feathers and skin. But nothing can keep the sky angel quiet. “The plant thing...it’s protecting the crystal, or powered by the crystal, I dunno.”

“Where is it?” TFC questions, eyes flicking across the battling guild. Stress freezes the blood and vines solid, while Cub severs the limbs with portal after portal opening and closing.

Grian grabs his head, trying to steady the spinning sensation. The moving hedges of the false maze, the limbs of the beast, don’t help to ease his confusion. He points a shaking finger at about 2 o’clock, relieved to have support from Mumbo and Iskall back to his feet.

“Should we run away from it? Obviously it’s going to try and take our energy- shouldn’t we stay as far away as possible?” Joe raises an eyebrow. His quill rushes across the pages beneath the tip, a rushed spell spouting forth. A million beetles emerge from the aged paper, tiny pincers digging into the plant monster and ripping it apart. Keralis plucks one from the sky, swallowing the beetle whole and feeling reinvigorated by the bug.

“If Dolios placed that there, he obviously intended for us to get close to it. If he knew we’d be going that way, that means the statue must be this direction.” Xisuma proposes, sending a ball of void into the chest of the many limbed vine creature.

“We should...we should destroy the crystal.” Grian hisses, grasping at his ribs and gasping for air. “So he can’t steal any more magic from here.”

“How?” Doc growls, despite plowing ahead. Towards the monster. Towards the crystal. “We could hardly put a dent in it last time!”

“We’ll figure it out. We’re pretty clever.” TFC hums, hopping over a whipping vine. He grasps a thin rod of corundum, steeling himself when another attempts to toss him into oblivion. The hermits battle their way through the shifting maze, but with each vine they cut down, more seem to spring from the bloody limbs and misty air. The attacks only grow more aggressive as they near the body of the beast, near the dark crystal controlling it. The air grows thick, hard to breathe and pressing down on the team. In the distance, they can hear the roar of a chimaera. Team Crafted. Hopefully they’re safe, as far away from this beast as possible.

The crystal comes into view. Ashen roots are planted firm around the massive crystalline structure, the gem pulsing with energy. Energy it’s stealing from the hermits and Team Crafted. Right on cue, black mist swirls around the opaque crystal, natural defenses going up. The hermits leap aside, avoiding the crushing blow from a twisted cable of vines by a narrow margin of time and air. From across the writhing greenery, TFC’s voice booms out commands. “You guys on the other side distract the monster- or better yet, try to kill it! Us over here will do our best to break the crystal.”

A cacophony of acknowledgements lets the guildmaster know they heard him, and he wastes no time scrabbling to his feet. He ignores the sound of fighting behind him, the cracks and groans of the beast or the screams of his guildmembers. He needs to focus on this crystal first and foremost.

TFC is a mineral mage. He knows gemstones- but not corrupted gems. His stomach clenches as his fingers brush against the smooth surface, and his head aches at the mere thought of how it controlled him before. He still feels horrible, snapping at his friends. It’s too dangerous to use, even in regular magic. This twisted, barbaric magical conduit needs to be destroyed.

But if there’s one thing he knows, all gems can only take so much energy before they cleave. And this crystal is practically brimming with stolen magic. “Let’s feed the beast then.”

“Have a snack, you mega crystal of doom!” Iskall shouts, bolts of radioactive energy crackling from his magic circle to the crystal. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow his attack until he can hardly stand. The gemstone remains standing, half buried in the dirt. But then False steps up, the multitude of cinquedeas summoned around her imbued with magic by Wels. A flick of the wrist, and the blades dig into the crystal. Rusted, but protruding from the gem like spines from a dragon.

“Yes! Focus the strikes on False’s swords! Use them like conduits!” TFC grins, leaping free as a rooted foot rips from the ground beside him. For a brief moment, he turns his attention back to the fighting hermits. He clasps his hands over his ears, the telltale shriek of Cleo’s banshee scream almost rupturing his eardrums. Impulse is on his back, protected by a weak bolt of lightning shot from Mumbo’s stuttering magic. But otherwise, they’re holding their own just fine.

“We’ve almost got it!” Wels cheers, noticing the cracks forming along the gem’s surface. Black smoke pours from the fractures, grasping at their feet and attempting to steal their magic. Attempting to keep control of the plant monster that protects it.

The ground beneath their feet rolls and rumbles, the dirt and hedges shivering and bucking against the hermits’ feet. Wels turns around, grinning when he sees what- or who- is the cause of the earthquake. Like a geyser of stone, a spike of rock pierces through the heart of the dark crystal. The mist around the hermits’ dissipates like morning fog chased off by the sun. Above the team, the plant monster erupts into ash, raining flakes of the husked creature with one final creak of wood and vine.

And the dark crystal shatters. It blows the hermits back, sending them tumbling among the shards of gemstone. The black aura fades with the color- it’s just a regular quartz crystal, albeit destroyed into a million tiny conchoidal pieces. The depressing weight on their bodies, that left them struggling to breathe and their magic weak, falls away like shed skin of a snake. None of them have felt this invigorated since the start of the games.

“Guys, there’s the statue!” Grian prods Mumbo in the back, both wincing as pain ricochets through both wounded hermits. A lush garden at the center of the labyrinth, gardenia and lilac flowers growing around a tall statue rising from a fresh, crystal clear spring. Carved in stone from the Lionheart mountains, the statue features each and every god in the main pantheon of Lairyon. From Echol to Limal, and Artyne- god of water.

Water, the symbol of life and magic in Lairyon. Water flows fresh, clean, and pure from the spring surrounding the stone gods. Two bowls rest untouched at the spring’s edge, carved from the very cyprus trees that inspired Milliara to be founded. Ren steps up, pausing and looking back at his teammates. Bruised, battered, broken. But urging him not to waste another second. This is it.

Ren dips the bowl in the spring. He swears he can feel energy, deep ancient magic within the cool water, chasing away the aftereffects of the crystal. In the distance, he can hear shouts of encouragement from vaguely familiar voices. Team Crafted is almost here. He doesn’t waste a second, wading across the water and pouring the bowl over the stone statue.

The mist disappears, and the statues move, as if brought to life by the mystical spring. Merkal, the god of mischief, moves his cloak to the side. Deliss brushes away the lilacs and gardenia. And the stone rendition of Artyne smiles, revealing the chalice. Crowning the hermits as victors of the Chimaera’s Championship.

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